huawei communicate€¦ · huawei communicate nov 2009 issue 52 new technologies drive ... huawei...

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2009 ISSUE 52

NOV 2009 ISSUE 52

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2009 ISSUE 52

New technologies drive GSM sustainable growth

O2 aims high in Germany

China Telecom 3G network outlook

HSPA+ accelerates mobile broadband

China Unicom fueling 3G services with a WO

Sponsor: Huawei COMMUNICATE Editorial Board,Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Consultants: Hu Houkun, Xu Zhijun, Xu WenweiDing Yun, Wan Biao, Zheng Chunhua

Editor-in-Chief: Gao Xianrui ([email protected])

Editors: Pan Tao, Li Xuefeng, Xue Hua, Huang Zhuojian Xu Ping, Fan Ruijuan, Chen YuhongXu Peng, Liu Zhonglin, Yao HaifeiMike Bossick, Gary Maidment, Zhou Shumin

Contributors: Zhu Yonggang, Lu Xingang, Zhao Yuan, Xu Yan Chen Yang, Liu Chuanyu, Liu Zhen, Masaco Sato Shi Lei, Mao Tianhua, Fabian Gradolph Cadierno Li Yongkeng, Shu Lei, Liu Wenjuan, Ivo Prochazka Marita Spera, Xu Yuan

E-mail: [email protected]

Tel: +86 755 28356172, 28356173

Fax: +86 755 28356180

Address: A10, Huawei Industrial Base, Bantian, Longgang, Shenzhen, China 518129

Publication registration No.: Yue B No.10148

Copyright © Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. 2009. All rights reserved.No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

NO WARRANTYThe contents of this document are for information purpose only, and provided “as is”. Except as required by applicable laws, no warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, are made in relation to contents of this document. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no case shall Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd be liable for any special, incidental, indirect, or consequential damages, or lost profits, business, revenue, data, goodwill or anticipated savings arising out of or in connection with any use of this document.

Infonetics Research reports that not only did people continue communicating during the global recession, but also that the shift from wireline to mobile communications gained in speed. With a staggering 5.9 billion mobile subscribers predicted for 2013, a truly mobile epoch is now being forged.

At present, GSM is still the most extensively used mobile network in the world. While 3G has unequivocally arrived, 3G’s long-term coexistence with 2G remains inevitable. Unsurprisingly, operators are pursuing new technologies capable of realizing sustainable GSM growth.

Despite prevailing economic stagnancy, mobile broadband has thrived. Pyramid Research says that mobile broadband has emerged as a vital component for continued competitiveness in emerging markets. The telecom researcher expects that 2008 to 2014 will see mobile broadband grow at a rate triple that of fixed broadband to deliver a 69 billion USD market by 2014.

Technological maturity, falling network costs, and a rise in service diversity and terminals have increased the profitability and competitiveness of WCDMA networks. On April 28, 2009, China Unicom stepped into the limelight with its new brand, “WO”. Strengthening China’s 3G market, the entrance of China Unicom into the WCDMA camp marks a significant global telecom milestone destined to power WCDMA development. On October 1, 2009, WO began to provide commercial 3G services in 285 cities in China.

As mobile broadband development shifts up a gear in developed regions, HSPA and HSPA+ have become the preferred choice of mobile operators who believe strongly in their potential. In turn, LTE remains the destination for 4G and is gathering in commercial momentum: TeliaSonera and Verizon Wireless have announced plans to construct LTE networks in 2009, with small scale commercial deployment set for 2010.

This issue explores various facets of today’s mobile world, including progress by 3GPP in HSPA and LTE standardization, China Unicom’s 3G services under WO, global HSPA and HSPA+ development, and proposed solutions to the technical issues regarding LTE. No matter which route you take, Huawei promises you a brighter mobile future!

A bright mobile future

Wan Biao

President of Huawei Wireless Product Line

What’s inside:

P.05 P.31

03 Huawei partners with Nucleus Connect to deploy Next Gen NBN in Singapore

Global Digest

01 KDDI to launch dual 3G/WiMAX service in Dec 2009

Cover Story

19 China Unicom fueling 3G services with a WOChina Unicom launched a new 3G brand called WO in April 2009, representing a milestone in implementing China Unicom’s full-service operation strategy. On October 1, 2009, WO began to provide commercial 3G services in 285 cities in China.

By Zhou Jianguo & Bian Ning

29 Compact, versatile, converged: here’s Femtocell

By Liu Xianjiang

08 3GPP standard progressHSPA+, LTE Release 8, 9 and LTE-Advanced

By Takehiro Nakamura

05 O2 aims high in Germany

By Reinhard Herr

Expert’s Forum

11 China Telecom: 3G network outlook

By Wei Leping

Main Topic

25 The rise of mobile broadbandThe financial crisis has promoted HSPA and HSPA+ as the optimum choices for the major mobile operators. TeliaSonera, and America’s Verizon Wireless have announced plans to construct LTE networks in 2009, with small scale commercial deployment set for 2010. The era of mobile broadband has unequivocally arrived.

By Li Xiaojuan

16 When it comes to basic broadband

There’s nothing better than WiMAXBy Wu Hui

P.25P.40

Let’s COMMUNICATE beyond technology and share understandings of the latest industry trends,

successful operational cases, leading technologies and more. Based on in-depth analysis of the

matters that lie close to your heart, we will help you stay on top in the competitive telecom industry.

33 Turn the dumb pipe into golden pipe

By Cui Jinglong

43 HSPA+ accelerates mobile broadbandBacked by a series of enhanced technologies, HSPA+ can significantly improve network speed and capacity. Its outstanding performance and extended technology are definitely perking the interests of many operators and spurring on development.

By Kong Fanzhao

40 New technologies drive GSM sustainable growthDespite the advent of 3G, 2G is destined to coexist with 3G over the long-term. Under limited GSM frequency resources, how can network capacity and user experience be continuously enhanced?

By Zhao Yinghe

Solution

36 HSPA+ and LTE:the mobile broadband future The mobile industry has been talking for many years about the day when the promise of substantial mobile data revenues would actually become a reality. Much to everyone’s delight, that day has finally arrived.

From 3G Americas

Media Insight

45 At the forefront of LTEWith a thorough understanding of customer needs and a commitment to excellence, Huawei leads the industry in LTE, a just reward for its pioneering efforts.

By Jiang Yihua

Leading Edge

31 The power of European 3GEuropean multinational mobile operators such as TI and T-Mobile, are proactively developing and evolving their mobile networks. However, change is a dynamic process: What changes are mobile networks likely to experience in the near future? Will these changes add commercial value for operators?

By Zhao Yuan

How to Operate

GLOBAL DIGEST

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 521

News

Google announces Chinese voice search for mobile

Google has announced a Mandarin

version of its voice search feature

for mobile phones. It is the first non-

English version of the voice search

feature, which Google has offered

since November 2008.

T h e n e w a p p w o u l d b e

ava i lab le for Andro id-based

phones in Taiwan, Hong Kong and

mainland China, said Vic Gundotra,

Vice President of Engineering.

It will also be available as a free

iPhone and Symbian Series 60

app, he said. The app is linked to

Google’s search engine, including

images and maps.

Video over power lines closer to reality

HomeGrid focuses on the

development of a standard that

will allow home networking over

coax, power l ines and phone

lines–an ambitious project that has

been decades in the making.

With connectivity seemingly

moving in a wireless direction

these days, it all sounds a bit retro–

HomeGrid isn’t even talking about

in-building networking over next

generation fixed technologies like

fibre, it’s talking about decades

old, cloth covered power cables in

crumbling British Victorian houses.

Yet HomeGr id spokesman

David Thorne, who is also chief

broadband and access strategist

for BT, is surpr is ingly candid

about the technology. "We’re

not out to replace Wi-Fi," he

said at a meeting at BT’s central

London headquarters. "This is

a complementary technology

to wireless. Wi-Fi does a good

enough job fo r connec t i ng

computers to the Internet, but

a hybrid system of f ixed and

wireless will be needed for higher

bandwidth applications."

MTS, TeliaSonera go on shopping spreesRuss ian investment house

Sistema said that it has sold its 50.91

percent stake in leading Moscow

fixed line broadband provider

Comstar UTS to Mobile TeleSystems

(MTS).

MTS, Russia’s number one mobile

operator, will pay 39.15 billion RUB

(1.32 billion USD) for the stake, with

35 percent remaining as a free float

and 14 percent held by Moscow-

based telephone company MGTS.

Comstar is Moscow’s leading

ADSL broadband service provider,

providing voice, data, Internet, and

pay TV, but the firm has a fixed

WiMAX strategy too.

Sistema is also the controlling

shareholder in MTS, owning 52.8

percent of the operator.

Meanwhile, across the Gulf of

Bothnia, Nordic carrier TeliaSonera

has taken control of Lithuanian

service provider Teo, after increasing

its ownership to 68.08 percent. As it

seeks to increase ownership in what

it describes as ”core holdings”, the

operator has also boosted its holding

in Estonian provider Eesti Telekom to

97.58 percent.

The Nordic operator will now

initiate a squeeze out action, to buy

out remaining minority shareholders

in Eesti.

LTE moves ahead following completion of LTE TD “proof of concept”

The LTE/SAE Trial Initiative (LSTI)

group has announced the successful

completion of proof of concepts

tests that it claims demonstrate

that LTE TD and service architecture

evolution (SAE) are achievable.

For the LTE TD trial, LSTI identified

a core set of proof points aligned

with the 3GPP and NGMN Alliance

requirements for LTE/SAE. Test

results from over 90 measurement

campaigns from seven vendors were

consolidated and analysed, with

regard to ensuring that operators

understand the practicalities in the

field and that users get an enhanced

experience.

The tests achieved the industry's

peak spectral efficiency target of

5bps/Hz downlink and 2.5bps/Hz

uplink in a live air test using prototype

equipment, while 2x2 MIMO delivered

40Mbps rates and 7.3bps/Hz spectral

efficiency.

Telefonica introduces Aplicateca business app store

Telefonica has introduced its

platform for business applications,

dubbed Aplicateca. The platform

provides the self-employed and

SMEs with a wide range of business

applications, on a software-as-a-

service (SaaS) basis.

The Aplicateca catalogue will

comprise three service categories,

to meet corporate customer needs,

considering their size, special

requirements and the business sector

in which they operate. The offer

includes horizontal services such as

business management applications

useful to any client regardless of

sector, including accounting, order

and billing, e-learning, help desk,

CRM or human resources.

The vertical applications are

differentiated by activity sector,

such as education, health or legal.

Finally, Aplicateca offers applications

designed for mobi le devices,

including fleet management and

tracking, shipping management or

order processing. Telefonica thus

creates an ecosystem of applications

where users pay monthly only for

the tools or services they need

without having to make any initial

investment.

KDDI to launch dual 3G/WiMAX service in Dec 2009Japanese mobile operator KDDI

plans to launch a dual mobile and

wireless data service before the end

of 2009. The company will offer four

devices that can access 3G as well as

WiMAX networks from December,

2009. KDDI will offer different plans

with a flat-fee plan expected to cost

JPY 5,000 to 6,000 per month. MVNO

Japan Communications is expected to

offer a similar service in 2009. To offer

the WiMAX service, both companies

will lease spectrum from WiMAX

operator UQ Communications.

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52 2

Data

30IP traffic has migrated away from

telco backbones in the last five years

and is now mostly carried by just 30

Internet content and data center

players, says a new study by Arbor

Networks.

Out of the 40,000 routed end sites

in the Internet, 30 large companies like

Limelight, Facebook, Google, Microsoft

and YouTube “now generate and

consume a disproportionate 30% of all

Internet traffic.”

16%Hong Kong Internet users spend

twice as much time on instant

messaging (IM) as other Asian users,

and prefer Yahoo’s websites to others,

according to comScore’s first report on

the territory.

Nearly 16% of the time spent

online in Hong Kong was on IM sites,

with 11% on entertainment sites–

led by YouTube.com and TVB.com–

and 8% on social networking, led by

Facebook, comScore said.

4.6 billionThe world’s telecom operators

will support 4.6 billion mobile and

500 million broadband subscribers

by the end of 2009, according to

ITU’s latest annual survey.

Yet despite the continued sharp

uptake of mobile services, a huge

gap remains between the digital

haves and have-nots, the agency

said.

12,000kmBrazil's largest mobile operator

by subscribers Vivo says it plans

to share a total of 12,000km of

fibre-optic networks with other

telecoms operators by 2012,

BNamericas quotes its president

Roberto Ol i ve i ra de L ima as

saying.

1MbpsFinland has become the first

country in the world to mandate

access to high speed broadband for

every citizen.

From next July, all 5.3 million

Finns will have the legal right to

a 1Mbps broadband connection.

Finland’s Ministry of Transport

and Communications has already

announced that it make a 100Mbps

broadband connection a legal

r ight by the end of 2015 but

announced this new initiative as an

intermediary step.

10 millionCaribbean mobile operator

Digicel has topped 10 mill ion

customers across the 32 markets

where it operates.

D i g i c e l ' s c u s t o m e r b a s e

registered a compound annual

growth rate of 40 percent over the

last two years.

Orange, T-Mobile set to corner MVNO market

Transatel will target the SME

market through telecom resellers

and community-based brands

look ing to int roduce mobi le

services and claims to be able to

bring new MVNO brands to the

Orange network. The platform will

be available for both prepaid and

postpaid segments.

The highly saturated UK mobile

market already has a good number

of MVNOs, with Virgin Mobile

sitting on T-Mobile’s network

giving it a 50 percent share of the

potential UK market.

Incidentally, DT and FT recently

announced a merger of equals of

their UK operations, with T-Mobile

and Orange to be folded into a

50:50 joint venture. This move

would create a new market leader,

with over 33 million subscribers

and a 43 percent share of the

UK market and would also allow

the new company to sew up the

MVNO market completely.

BT to expand fast fibre offering

UK incumbent BT said that it is

to more than double the availability

of its fastest fibre broadband service,

delivering speeds of up to 100Mbps

to around 2.5 million UK homes and

businesses.

BT had originally planned to

roll out FTTP to approximately one

million buildings as part of its overall

plan to reach around ten million

homes with fibre by 2012. The

remaining homes would be able

to receive FTTC services, delivering

initial speeds of up to 40Mbps.

But the carrier said it will now

rollout FTTP as an upgrade in some

areas rather than deploying the

technology in new build sites only.

In the future, this infrastructure

could be upgraded to deliver speeds

of up to 1Gbps, BT said. Progress

is already underway and the carrier

claims 1.5 million homes will have

access by next summer.

Vodafone starts mobile widgets competitionVodafone has launched a two-

phased competition to find the

most innovative and useful mobile

widgets. The winning developer,

in each of the two phases of the

Vodafone Appstar competition,

will pocket EUR 100,000. The

competition has a combined prize

fund of EUR 1 million, which will be

shared across eight of Vodafone's

l a rges t Eu ropean opera t ing

companies to encourage innovation

in the mobile application and widget

space. The participating eight

countries are UK, Ireland, Germany,

Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal

and Greece. In the initial round of

each phase of the competition,

developers from anywhere in

the world can submit widgets

compatible with the new Vodafone

360 mobiles to any one of these

eight markets via a competition

website.

Global Digest

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 523

Huawei News

O2 completes live network upgrade

Shenzhen, China, 7 Sep 2009,

Huawei announced that it has

successfully completed the largest-

ever l ive network upgrade in

Germany for Telefonica O2 Germany.

Under the agreement, Huawei

will also deliver an additional 3,000

base stations to O2 in Germany

as part of its network expansion.

The operator has chosen to deploy

Huawei’s SingleRAN solution for a

GSM/UMTS converged network in

the southern region of Germany,

covering major cities such as Munich

and Stuttgart.

"It’s a great achievement. 494

days after signing the contract

we reached the most important

m i l e s tone w i th the b igge s t

swap project in the O2 history,"

said Mr. Manfred Kickartz, Vice

President of Network Region South

of Telefonica O2 Germany, "That

was fantastic teamwork. Thank you

all for that absolutely extraordinary

performance."

"The successful completion of

Germany’s largest ever network

upgrade reflects our strong capability

in delivery," said Mr. Walter Haas,

CTO of Huawei Germany. "Our

advanced SingleRAN solution

enables the operator to simplify the

radio access network unifying both

GSM and UMTS functionalities. This

state-of-the-art network will be

significantly enhanced in coverage

qual ity and able to meet the

operator’s demands for increased

data traffic."

Huawei and China Mobile successfully deployed world’s first ATCA-based mobile softswitch solution in China

Shenzhen, China, 29 Sep 2009,

Huawei announced, along with

partner China Mobile, the successful

deployment of the world's first

Advanced Telecom Computing

Architecture (ATCA)-based mobile

softswitch solution in Guangdong

province. This deployment holds the

record for the single largest user-

supported service by any vendor,

serving 1.7 million subscribers in

Dongguan city.

Huawei's ATCA mobile softswitch

system, which can support 12 million

subscribers with one device, can be

used across many applications and

features high-capacity and high-

integration. It offers "plug-and-play"

to carrier-grade systems by defining a

high-availability, chassis-based platform

that will scale from gigabits- to terabits-

per-second and helps operators

smoothly migrate to a future-oriented

convergence network.

The significant benefits of an ATCA-

based system, including faster time

to market, vendor choice, increased

flexibility and reduced TCO, enable

operators to build effective, green and

reliable core networks. Huawei's ATCA-

based mobile softswitch solution has

helped China Mobile to reduce its

footprint by 90 percent and power

consumption by 65 percent.

This innovative ATCA-based mobile

softswitch solution enables China

Mobile to lower operating costs while

fulfilling its green strategy.

Huawei partners with Nucleus Connect to deploy Next Gen NBN in Singapore

Singapore, 23 Sep 2009, Huawei

has been awarded the end-to-end

network solution contract by Nucleus

Connect to develop Singapore’s Next

Generation Nationwide Broadband

Network (Next Gen NBN), a nation-

wide ultra-high-speed broadband

network service to deliver bandwidth

services ranging from 100Mbps

to 1Gbps to residential users and

business users.

Under this appointment, Huawei

has been awarded a seven-year

contract to provide the end-to-end

full turn-key active network solution

and professional Establish, Operate,

Transfer (EOT) services for the

entire Next Gen NBN. The offering

includes 80-Tbps IP core Clustering

Router, Next Generation DWDM

optical transmission, Aggregation

Service Router, Terabit GPON access

platform, Carrier Ethernet Switch,

Multi-service ONTs and the unified

network management system for the

entire active network.

Mr. Dav id Storr ie , CEO of

Nucleus Connect said, "Nucleus

Connect is committed to offering

world-class leading edge services

across the Next Gen NBN. With

the appointment of Huawei ,

Nucleus Connect is confident that

the state-of-the-art active network

infrastructure will enable the delivery

of a comprehensive range of service

offerings to our customers today

and in the future. In addition, the

partnership with Huawei will allow

us to deploy the network in a timely

and efficient manner to meet the

stringent project milestones set out

by the IDA."

"We are delighted to partner

Nucleus Connect to build the

world’s first Open Access Next Gen

NBN," said Mr. Ding Yun, President

of Huawei Network Product Line.

"Huawei is committed to leveraging its

proven expertise, innovative solution

and extensive global deployment

experiences to deliver a comprehensive

range of ultra-high-speed broadband

services in Singapore."

Huawei’s integrated Al l - IP

broadband solution will enable

Nucleus Connect’s Next Gen NBN

Active Network to become a highly

resilient, open access, multi-services,

secure and scalable infrastructure

to meet the nationwide broadband

network requirements and support

Retail Service Providers (RSPs) to

create a vibrant and sustainable

InfoComm business landscape in

Singapore. The network solution

is designed to meet lower TCO in

the long run and to meet future

FMC services via various innovative

features from Huawei All-IP solution.

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52 4

M1 HSPA+ network first in Asia Pacific to deploy MIMO

Singapore, 13 Oct 2009, M1’s

HSPA+ network will now be able to

deliver Singapore’s fastest mobile

broadband download speed of up

to 28Mbps in selected areas after

the completion of further network

upgrade by Huawei.

The increased speed has been

achieved with the installation of

MIMO, making M1 HSPA+ network

the first in the Asia Pacific to adopt

this technology. MIMO will be

rolled out to the entire network

progressively.

"The HSPA+ network upgrade

and deployment of MIMO are part

of our ongoing efforts to provide

our customers with an advanced

and innovative high speed mobile

broadband network. We wi l l

continue to work with Huawei

to implement state-of-the-art

technology to ensure that our HSPA+

network remains one of the most

modern and sophisticated networks

in the region, capable of offering our

customers a rich suite of mobile data

services," said Patrick Scodeller, Chief

Technical Officer of M1.

"Huawei highly values our

strategic relationship with M1 and

we are delighted to have been

selected by M1 for the upgrade of

its HSPA+ network," said Jeff Liu,

President of Huawei South Pacific

Region.

T h e M 1 H S PA + n e t w o r k

has been capable of delivering

download speed of 21Mbps since

July 2009. However, the launch of

a commercial mobile broadband

service at this speed has been held

back till now due to the unavailability

of suitable devices in the market that

could offer a satisfactory customer

experience.

Huawei helps PLDT enhance fiber optic network

PLDT is undergoing the 12th

upgrade of its nationwide digital

f iber opt ics network (DFON)

in a bid to expand capacity by

increasing bandwidth via a reliable

optical layer technology.

For this project, PLDT partnered

with Huawei Technologies Philippines,

to develop the expansion through

Huawei’s optical layer reconfiguration

technology or ROADM. According

to Yang Hua, Huawei Philippines

P r e s i d e n t , R OA D M i s m o re

adaptable to the development of

the service network because of

its maintainability, reliability and

scalability.

PLDT Network and Platforms

Services Group Head Dante Medina

said the partnership is going to

be strategic as Huawei provides

high quality service and proven

technology in ROADM. “Huawei is

going to expand existing capacity

in an over lay topology using

ROADM, a platform that carries

high bandwidth capacity,” Medina

said, adding that the project will

also expand the coverage of PLDT

services nationwide.

Aside from adding capacity

and bandwidth, the PLDT-Huawei

project will also provide a necessary

system for redundancy that will

ensure continued services even

when cable cuts occur, said PLDT

Regional Transport Engineering

Senior Manager Atong Vergara.

He said the ROADM technology

is capable to rerouting traffic to

other lines as cable cuts occur. He

also said this project will add to

the 7,500 kilometers of inland and

submarine fiber optic cables linking

45 nodes strategically located in

major urban areas nationwide.

Huawei and AIRCOM partner for OSS integration

S h a n g h a i , C h i n a , 1 3 O c t

2009, Huawei jointly announced

a partnership to drive product

i n te rope rab i l i t y and s y s tem

integration. The cooperation between

Huawei and AIRCOM will secure

future operation support system

(OSS) and interoperability of network

management products, ensuring

that only minimal customization and

testing will be required by network

operators implementing a Huawei/

AIRCOM solution.

This integration technology

partnership is focused on network

performance and configuration

management. Leading AIRCOM

network planning tools OPTIMA

and DATASAFE will be integrated

with Huawei’s wireless solutions via

its iManager M2000 management

system. iManager M2000 is the

unified platform that provides

centralized management to all

wireless technologies of Huawei,

including GSM, UMTS, CDMA,

WiMAX, LTE and more.

"As the leader in mobile networks,

Huawei’s robust investment in LTE

research and development has

accelerated the commercialization

of LTE technology. It is essential that

AIRCOM technology integrates with

Huawei solutions as seamlessly as

possible, to guarantee a positive user

experience for network operators,"

said Ricky Watts, Chief Technology

Officer, AIRCOM International. "Our

close working relationship with

Huawei will ensure AIRCOM can

develop and verify all technology

interfaces, regardless of version."

"The partnership presents

clear advantages for both parties,

enhancing our mutual customer’s

satisfaction," said Zheng Yelai,

Vice President of Huawei Wireless

Product Line. More than 2000 of

Huawei’s iManager M2000 products

have been deployed in more

than 100 countries for more than

300 operators around the world,

including Vodafone, China Mobile,

T-Mobile, Telefonica O2 and Turkcell.

Expert’s Forum

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

O2 aims high in GermanyAt the 2009 Huawei Mobile User Congress in Munich, Reinhard Herr, the VP of Network Development for O2, gave the audience an insight into the O2 vision, where the company is today, and what challenges it currently faces.

5

O2 Germany at a glance

he world has given our customers a wea l th o f oppo r tun i t i e s . Ou r s l o g a n – “ O 2 c a n d o” – e n c a p s u l a t e s o u r v i s i o n o f

enabling subscribers to fully exploit the current potential of telecommunications and, in doing so, enrich their l ives. Basically, everything we do is customer-focused. In taking this approach, we’ve shown our commitment to be creatively different.

Founded in 1995 under the name “ VIAG In t e rkom” , we r e -b r anded ourselves as O2 in 2002 before becoming part of the Telefonica group in 2005. We began operating mobile services in October 1998 underpinned by 3,000

By Reinhard Herr

base stations. Being the fourth and latest mobile operator in Germany, we’ve had our work cut out to catch up with our competition. Nevertheless, O2 has emerged as an innovative, fresh and young company notable for its vigor. In 1999, we introduced our Home Zone product, Genion, the first truly converged fixed and mobile service; in 2001, we were the first in Germany to launch GPRS.

After the acquis i t ion, Telefonica extended our goals to include equaling the coverage rate of our peers. Integral to this was a massive investment program; in 2008 alone we allocated €1 billion. By the end of the year our revenues topped €3.6 billion and we had attracted an impressive 14.4 million mobile subscribers. Currently, we enjoy the best split with 48% of our subscribers prepaid and 52% postpaid.

Voice and data

Let’s begin with the story of our voice service. We’ve seen continuous growth in 2G and 3G voice traffic which now reaches an impressive 2 million Erlang daily. While our initial investment plan was designed to expand coverage, we soon began the inevitable debate: should we go 2G or 3G? Unfortunately, 60% of our customers still operate only a 2G device, which means that 2G voice and SMS are the key applications requiring our support. Logically, we decided to prioritize 2G coverage.

By the end of 2008, our outdoor coverage was 99.4%, though our indoor coverage rate was just 84%. Having realigned our coverage strategy to focus on indoor coverage provision, we’re aiming to

T


NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Huawei Communicate

Mr. Reinhard Herr graduated from Giessen University Germany with a degree in Communication Technology. He is now VP of Network Development at O2. Prior to his career at O2, he worked as VP Network Operations at Vodafone.

6

“To achieve our targets, we’re implementing an aggressive access network rollout and swapping project in Germany. At the end of 2009, the rollout and swap volume will reach 20,000 sites. Unsurprisingly, the project scale represents an enormous challenge for us. Considerable effort, energy and determination will be expended by our teams.“

achieve 91% by the end of 2009. To match our competitors in Germany, we’re also aiming to reach 99.8% outdoor coverage. When we reach this stage, it’s likely that we’ll no longer need a roaming contract partner.

Next, I ’d l ike to discuss our data services. In the middle of 2008, we shook up the market with a new package that gives customers 10GB per month for €25. The need for capacity is growing so fast that it has surprised even us. However, many of our customers are young and particularly sensitive to speed and technology; they often compete with each other to establish who has the fastest applications. While our download speed of around 1.8Mbps is comparable to that of our major competitors, such as T-Mobile, we’ve identified that three times as many subscribers are concerned with speed than was the case with our competitors.

Also, it’s interesting to see what devices customers are now using. According to figures for May 2009, surf sticks are dominant and consume approximately 90% of the total available capacity.

To support growing data requirements, we intend to increase our outdoor 3G POP coverage from 57%, which was the rate at the end of 2008, to 59% by the end of 2009. Over the same time period, we’ll increase indoor pop coverage from 45% to 48%.

Massive rollout and swap

To a c h i e v e o u r t a r g e t s , w e ’r e implementing an aggressive access network rollout and swapping project in Germany. At the end of 2009, the rollout and swap volume will reach 20,000 sites. Unsurprisingly, the project scale represents

an enormous challenge for us. Considerable effort, energy and determination will be expended by our teams to realize completion as planned by the end of 2009.

In southern Germany, we selected Huawei as our 2G and 3G access vendor. We charged Huawei with swapping 5,199 sites–3,401 2G and 1,798 3G–which covers all access node types including BTSs, Node Bs, BSCs, TSCs, and RNCs. Inevitably, it has been a huge challenge to cutover LIVE service sites without impacting quality or services. The risk, however, has been worth it to enhance coverage, improve technology, and, of course, lower TCO. We’ve nearly reached the end: 95%–i.e. 4,926 NEs–had been completed at the end of June 2009, and now we’re in a strong position to defy expectations and showcase our future potential.

If you ask me about key success factors, I’d respond with three basic premises:

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thorough preparation, solid execution, and ongoing quality control. We’ve fortified our latest project with an unbroken monitoring mechanism that identifies potential issues and evaluates progress. Central to this has also been a commitment to close cooperation, which has enabled rapid, effective and feasible solutions via intertwined work processes between both parties. That being said, success comes above all from people: you have to believe in your staff and motivate them. You also need a committed vendor who is sensitive enough to see things from the customer’s perspective, care sincerely about quality, and be able to do things on time. We’ve demonstrated that these factors can be pulled together and channelled. So, I’d like to extend a big “thank you” to both our team and to Huawei.

As an innovative, customer-focused company, we wish to continue cooperating with Huawei to complete our HSDPA+ network construction project. Project Formula 1, as we call it, is focused on speed. From June 2009 onwards almost the en t i r e ne twork ha s compr i s ed HSDPA at 7.2Mbps and HSUPA at 2.0Mbps. According to the Formula 1 implementation plan, we have achieved 28Mbps in the Munich area from the October beer festival onwards. The next step consists of realizing a 10.8Mbps download speed, and/or 14.4Mbps in two domestic locations. Here, we want to demonstrate to our business customers the opportunities we can afford them through speed. This is also a Huawei project–Huawei is demonstrably the vendor capable of the earliest delivery. Project completion will be immediately followed by commerc ia l dep loyment . Whi le presenting considerable challenges, it’s also a major step ahead of our competitors.

Preparing for the future

We know that the access network project isn’t enough. So, we’re adopting a multi faceted approach across other network layers to fully support overall capability and prepare for the future.

We swapped our circuit core network a t the beg inn ing o f 2009–a ma jo r

undertaking. Now, we’ve established an R4 All-IP-based network embracing 17 MGWs, 11 MSC servers and 2 CDs; we thus possess the newest, future-oriented technology. Additionally, we decided to increase packet core network capacity and add 3 GGSNs and 3 SGSNs by the end of 2009 to support our new data capacity.

Another key issue is of course intelligent bandwidth management. For example, with the €25 package I mentioned earlier, speeds can be slowed if a customer has used 10GB. Bandwidth management is extremely important; in practice 5% of customers use 80% of the available capacity. Should we expand network capacity just for this 5%? Operators must, therefore, identify where, when and how they build up their networks.

Finally, a common architecture with next generation IN (NGIN) forms a key strategic goal for the Telefonica Group. In addition to supporting legacy services, NGIN will offer the ability to execute services over any type of network via any access method. Currently, this forms a central aspect of IMS network deployment in Germany and fixed and mobile access convergence. Additionally the NGIN will orchestrate the inter-mixing and matching of different applications. To build this platform, we’ve also chosen Huawei. In Europe, the project is planned for the Czech Republic, Germany, and Spain. We’re the first in Germany to deploy this type of scheme, largely because our existing IN system will reach the end of its lifecycle next year and we have no choice. So, we must catch up, apply the NGIN to the network, and subsume all our applications into this new platform.

If we view the picture holistically in terms of the domains in which Huawei and Telefonica cooperate, we can see that a strong symbiotic relationship and par tner sh ip has deve loped. As demonstrated in the rollout and swapping project in south Germany, Huawei has delivered what it promised to. Of course, in each of these projects, we’ve had to focus completely to meet our deadlines and milestones. I’m confident that together we will also achieve win-win results in the future.

”If we view the picture holistically in terms of the domains in which Huawei and Telefonica cooperate, we can see that a strong symbiotic relationship and partnership has developed. I’m confident that together we will also achieve win-win results in the future. “

Editor: Yao Haifei [email protected]

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Takehiro Nakamura is now Director of the Radio System Design Group of NTT DOCOMO, he has been contributing to standardization activities in 3GPP since 1999. He had contributed to 3GPP TSG-RAN as a vice chairman during March 2005 to March 2009. He is currently a chairman of 3GPP TSG-RAN since April 2009.

3GPP standard progress HSPA+, LTE Release 8, 9 and LTE-Advanced

By Takehiro Nakamura

3GPP overview and releases

et me first introduce the 3GPP working structure. At the top level is the technical specification groups (TSG) which specify and approve specifications. We have four

technical specification groups. TSG GERAN develops specifications for GSM and EDGE. TSG RAN works for UTRA/E-UTRA specifications. TSG SA is for service and system aspects. Lastly, at TSG CT core network and terminals issues are treated and specifications are developed in this group. Under each TSG, there are several working groups. For example, at TSG RAN, we have five working groups.

From the establishment, of course, GSM, GPRS, and EDGE specifications are developed within TSG GERAN. At the end of 1999, we specified Rel-99 specifications for WCDMA. This is the first release of 3GPP. After that, we had many releases. In each release, new features are added in the specifications. For example, in Rel-4 specifications for TD-SCDMA 1.28 Mcps are included. This is followed by Rel-5 for HSDPA and IMS, Rel-6 for HSUPA, MBMS and IMS+. Rel-7 afterwards adds HSPA+ (MIMO, HOM etc) specifications. Our latest release is Rel-8 which includes LTE and SAE features. Now, we are aggressively working on the Rel-9 specifications in which small LTE/SAE enhancements will be added. We have also started Rel-10 specification, the main feature of which is LTE-Advanced.

HSPA standardization progress

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Let me recap the HSPA+ standardization history. We started HSPA+ study in Rel-7. In Rel-8 specifications, many features, DL MIMO + 64 QAM, dual cell HSDPA, EUL for Cell FACH, just to name a few, are captured. We think that HSPA+ still has a lot potential to tap. So we are working very hard for Rel-9 to include more futures, including multi-carrier HSPA (MC HSUPA, support for different bands for dual-cell HSDPA, combination of DC-HSDPA with MIMO), 2ms TTI coverage extension, TxAA extension for non-MIMO user.

Here we are concerned with interoperability issue. While it is possible for terminals to implement most HSPA+ features, it’s impossible for the terminal vendors to have an interoperability test with network vendors. That’s the problem. To solve this issue, we decided that most features can be treated as optional, and signaling should be specified. That is, the signaling should inform which features are tested interoperatable, and such information can be transmitted to the network side from terminals. Such kind of interface is specified in our specification. So operators can know this feature can be used or that feature cannot be used.

LTE standardization progress

We started LTE specifications from the Rel-7 timeframe. That was the study item, in other words, the feasibility study of 3G long term evolution. The result was very useful, not only for LTE, but also the HSPA+. For example, the LTE architecture will be transported to HSPA, layer 2 level enhancement is also used in the HSPA. As we have three paths, 2G, 3G and LTE, coupled with FDD aspect and TDD aspect, we are very concerned about how operators should smoothly migrate their networks. There are so many alternatives and options for migrations. Such requirement for migration is very different company by company, region by region, country by country. In any case, 3GPP has already provided functions and features inter-working between these evolution paths. Now LTE specifications

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3GPP standard progress

are completed and very stable. Test aspects were approved in the Q4 2008, as well as core specs functionally frozen and main work items closed. I hope current specifications can help operators very effectively develop LTE systems now.

LTE Release 9

Here, I’d like to present the latest Rel-9 status. In 3GPP, Rel-8 LTE/SAE core specification work has been completed. Discussion on LTE-Advanced has been started. Meanwhile, small improvements are being discussed for Rel-9 LTE/SAE, due to be finalized by the end of 2009.

Rel-9 LTE/SAE topics include Home eNB (e Node B), SON (self-organizing networks), MBMS LCS, and MSR (multi-standard radio). Actually, basic functions for Home eNB are already supported in Rel-8. Now we are discussing the enhancements and remaining issues in Rel-8. One of the main features is CSG (closed subscriber group) control. Still, in 3GPP, home eNB aspects present very interesting topics. Many companies are contributing to the home eNB enhancement, not only the radio aspect, but also the service and architecture aspect. So in Rel-9, many good features will be included in those specifications. For example, enhancement to support hybrid access modes by which

all UEs are allowed to access the cell, but UEs belonging to the CSG is entitled to access with priority. In addition, regarding the inbound mobility from macro eNB to Home eNB issue, handover support when different Home eNBs neighboring a macro cell are using the same PCI is being developed to resolve PCI fusion at handover.

SON is an integral part of LTE. A number of SON features are supported in Rel-8, and work is continuing for Rel-9. SON solutions can be divided into two categories: self-configuration and self-optimization. The former enables the network to automat ica l ly per form ins ta l l a t ion procedure (plug and play), and the latter enables the network to auto-tune its operational parameters using UE, eNB and performance measurements. Both functions can help operators decrease OPEX. In Rel-9, a lot of self-optimization features are being discussed. These include coverage/capacity optimization, mobi l i t y load ba l anc ing , mobi l i t y robus tnes s opt imiza t ion , common channel configuration optimization and minimization of drive tests.

E-MBMS discussion was postponed in Rel-8 due to lack of t ime, and is continued in Rel-9. However, scope for the E-MBMS is quite limited in Rel-9 to speed up the discussion. Basic Rel-8 L2/L3

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architecture is reused in Rel-9. E-MBMS in Rel-9 is focused on the broadcast mode, not the multi-cast. However, MBMS in Home eNB and mobility procedures to support MBMS continuity will not be supported in Rel-9. There is possibility that additional features can be added for E-MBMS for Rel-10 time framework. Also worth to note is that the E-MBMS architecture is a common architecture for both EUTRAN and UTRAN, which allows smooth migration from UTRAN to EUTRAN.

LTE-Advanced

We have already started LTE-Advanced discussion from the end of 2007. Study item is still ongoing, and work item is expected to start in late 2009. As LTE-Advanced is an evolution of LTE, it is not a totally new radio access technology, and needs to have a backward compatibility with LTE. That’s an important aspect. LTE-Advanced shall meet or exceed IMT-Advanced requirements within the ITU-R time plan, and targets of LTE-Advanced are adopted as long term terms within 3GPP.

Key features under discussion in 3GPP support wider bandwidth, extension of uplink multiple access, extension of MIMO, coordinated multiple point

transmission and reception, and relaying.

Multi-standard radio

MSR is a very important aspect for Rel-9, and many companies are very interested in this aspect. Scope of MSR identified in Rel-9 includes identifying relevant scenarios, and developing RF requirements specification applicable to MSR base station with multi carriers and/or multiple 3GPP radio access technologies. It is also aimed to cover GSM, UTRA, and E-UTRA (both FDD and TDD modes) for relevant single and multi-carrier scenarios. In fact, the TSG GERAN is also working on this topic to support the RAN4 work item building block. We are working with GERAN group with very closely and actively, and try to output specifications in a short time. Also, manufactures including Huawei is actively promoting the MSR advancement.

What is the possible scenario for MSR? We identified three band categories (BC) for MSR. BC1 indicates bands for UTRA FDD and E-UTRA FDD operation; BC2 is for UTRA FDD, E-UTRA FDD and GSM operation; BC3 is for UTRA TDD/TD-SCDMA and E-UTRA TDD operation. As you can see, there are so many spectrum bands already specified

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Multi-standard radio (MSR) is a very important aspect for Rel-9, and many companies are very interested in this aspect. Scope of MSR identified in Rel-9 includes identifying relevant scenarios, and developing RF requirements specification applicable to MSR base station with multi carriers and/or multiple 3GPP radio access technologies.

in the 3GPP, and for each spectrum band we need to study the performance requirement for MSR.

We already have agreed on several topics related to MSR. Manufacturers have declared several issues including band category, maximum FR bandwidth, E-UTRA channel bandwidth, number of supported carriers, BS output power, and maximum supported carrier power difference. In addition, concepts related to operating band unwanted emissions are already agreed. For spurious emissions, it is agreed that the MSR specification can adopt current E-UTRA requirement. We have had many discussions between the manufacturer s ide and operator side. Operator side wants to keep the existing requirements for the single radio operation, while the manufacturer side says it’s very difficult to keep if you try to deploy multi-standard radio base stations. Anyway, discussion is still ongoing, and we hope to find some satisfactory solutions to both sides.


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China Telecom: 3G network outlookBy Wei Leping

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hina Telecom is close to completing the first phase of its large-scale network construction project following the acquisition of the CDMA network from China Unicom. They have targeted

expanding the CDMA subscriber base to 100 million in three years and signing up 35 million in 2009 alone. Why is China Telecom so confident about CDMA network? How will they supercharge the CDMA industry chain and rapidly expand their CDMA capabilities?

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Wei Leping currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Communication Science and Technology Commission of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, the Head of the Information and Communication Network Committee of China Institute of Communications, and previously was the CTO of China Telecom.

reshape the industry chain and business model, accelerate the development of new services, reduce duplicate construction and conserve resources. It is presently playing an important role in fast service swapping, and service or ISP management, all leading to future 3G service expansion and innovation.

Boosting the CDMA industry chain

In today’s market environment, the maturity of industry chain is crucial, especially in the mobile sector. The weak link in the CDMA chain is chip making. As a result, CDMA terminals are far less competitive than WCDMA/HSPA terminals in terms of price and models. This had made the technically advanced and earlier-adopted CDMA technology lose ground to its rivals.

China Telecom has worked toward closing the gap since before taking over the CDMA network and entered an agreement with Qualcomm to jointly boost the CDMA industry chain. Still, the chain needs efforts from all parties across the industry. As the owner of core CDMA technology, Qualcomm should take the lead in vitalizing the industry chain. The company is expected to take a number of positive approaches, like lowering the CDMA patent barrier, encourage competition in CDMA chip design and production and attract more terminal manufacturers.

China Telecom lacks experience in CDMA operations and the industry chain. It will take more time to implement and innovate. Even so, we have reason to feel upbeat as a host of CDMA vendors have actively participated in their recent network equipment and terminal purchases, giving

Robust overall competitiveness

China Telecom has been operating a mobile network since the 4th quarter of 2008. Currently China Telecom trails far behind other mobile operators in the market, but is competitive in 3G.

First of all , CDMA2000 supports smooth evolution to 3.5G on the same band, network and equipment. This eliminates the need for network overlap within the new band, accelerates network construction and lowers CAPEX and OPEX.

China Telecom will be able to deploy a 3.5G EV-DO Rev.A-based network that covers county-level cities nationwide and developed counties and townships in the Eastern China in 2009. The average speed network-wide is exponentially faster and will soon be China’s largest 3G/3.5G network in terms of scale and coverage.

Second , CDMA techno logy can breed differentiated services that create new market opportunities like trunking services.

Third, with the world’s largest fixed-line and broadband networks, China Telecom is well-positioned to deliver FMC services based on narrowband and broadband capabilities as well as bundled voice, data, mobile and video services. Based on its Quadruple-play services, we are poised to launch a series of innovative home service packages that combine home fixed and mobile voice packages bundled with home broadband and IPTV services.

Fourth, in response to the demand for data and convergent services, China Telecom has focused on developing and deploying a unified, open, and horizontal in tegra ted mobi l e s e r v i ce ne twork platform. The platform is designed to

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signs that the CDMA industry chain is bullish.

For CDMA network equipment bought by China Telecom, the average price per sector has declined to 1/6 to 1/8 of the figure several years ago, drastically lowering CAPEX. Terminal vendors are pinning high hopes on the China Telecom CDMA network and have supplied them with a considerable amount of terminals on short notice. Our Guangzhou Research Institute is kept busy testing the terminals. Some world-class terminal vendors are planning to develop more CDMA terminals . Service, application and content providers are also active in adapting or developing services for the CDMA network. Since early 2009, China Telecom increased its subscriber base by an average number of around 3 million new users a month.

There is still a long way to go before the industry chain is substantially transformed and requires a joint effort from all parties across the industry. China Telecom is committed to joining forces with all industry players to boost the CDMA industry. Leading terminal vendors also need to launch into and contribute to the CDMA market right now.

Creating a superior network

The CDMA network ha s a poor reputation among subscribers for its weak network coverage, not because of technology, but other factors. Previously, despite being the weakest of China’s three leading operators, the former China Unicom operated two mobile networks. The operator struggled to equally address resource allocation, technical expertise, market positioning and service operations. In sharp contrast, China Mobile, the

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world’s largest operator by subscriber base, has been able to concentrate on operating just one GSM network. How could China Unicom possibly compete with China Mobile in terms of network coverage with less than 100,000 CDMA base stations against China Mobile’s 400,000 base stations?

China Telecom decided to first improve coverage by adding numerous base stations and optimizing the CDMA network. Given a smaller subscriber base, China Telecom needs fewer base stations than China Mobile to achieve coverage and performance on par with China Mobile in the near future, and this promises to improve China Telecom’s reputation among subscribers.

Nevertheless, the CDMA network is under construction and during the swapping and network optimization, caused by non-technical problems, there may be negative impact on the network quality. Thus, China Telecom needs understanding from subscribers and is working with vendors to minimize the negative impact through innovative technologies.

China Telecom’s 3G network is distinguished by high-quality 3G data services. As specified by ITU, CDMA2000 1X is a 3G standard that delivers WCDMA capabil it ies . CDMA2000 1×EV-DO is defined as a 3.5G standard that provides HSPA capabilities. Obviously, the CDMA2000 1X features high speed rates, and will inherit strength in its evolution to EV-DO.

The EV-DO Rev.A network which China Telecom would launch will have a theoretical peak downlink speed of 3.1Mbps. When upgrading EV-DO Rev.A to EV-DO Rev.B via software, which bundles two or three carriers, the speed and sector throughput are comparable to those of HSPA. In this case, the theoretical downlink speed can reach as

high as 6.2Mbps and 9.3Mbps, compared with a peak downlink speed of 14.4Mbps for HSPA. The theoretical peak downlink speed of EV-DO Rev.B is only slightly lower than that of HSPA, but the user experience is somewhat the same.

In addition, EV-DO Rev.B’s performance can be improved through new chips and hardware upgrading. Theoret ical ly, the peak upl ink and downlink speeds can reach 5.4Mbps and 14.7Mbps respectively, given a bundle of three carriers. Hardware upgrading, however, is costly, and takes longer for commercialization just like LTE. Due to the high risk, most operators tend to evolve to LTE directly.

In fact, only subscribers close to a base station can enjoy peak speeds, while others cannot. In this sense, the cell system throughput counts more as it is perceived by most subscribers covered by the cell. According to the measurement, the throughputs of two-carrier EV-DO Rev.A/Rev.B through software upgrading and three-carrier EV-DO Rev.B through software upgrading can reach 1.25Mbps, 2.5Mbps and 3.75Mbps respectively, compared with a throughput of 3.96Mbps for HSPA. Software upgraded EV-DO Rev.B and HSPA make little difference to most subscribers. In addition, unlike HSPA, EV-DO Rev.B can support QoS and real-time services and is more competitive in streaming media.

When networks deliver similar speeds, it is time for operators to shift focus from speeds to differentiated services including streaming media.

Network evolution forecast

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What is the evolutionary path of the CDMA network? China Telecom began to explore this topic as early as 2008. Similar to the evolution of other networks, CDMA networks should evolve to equally address short-term and long-term benefits, technical trends and market competition.

Three stages

The evolution of China Telecom’s wireless network can be divided into three stages.

T h e f i r s t s t a g e i s m a r k e d b y CDMA2000 1X and EV-DO Rev.A networks that are being deployed around China to serve two purposes. One is to improve the coverage and capacity of the existing CDMA 2000 1X network. China Telecom needs to construct a full-coverage 3G network by substantially adding BTSs and improving network coverage and performance.

IP-based core networks should be swiftly deployed during network swapping. In other words, softswitch equipment provides most of the increased capacity to form an IP-based softswitch core network, faci l i tating the transit ion to IP and flattened networking.

Second is to deploy nationwide EV-DO Rev.A networks that cover county-level cities and developed townships in Eastern China to construct a 3.5G network that delivers solid coverage with faster

networking speeds and higher quality. The 3G/3.5G era is an era of high-speed data, multimedia and streaming media services. After implementing these two steps, China Telecom will have a competitive 3G/3.5G network and customers enjoying smooth mobile web and other applications.

T h e s e c o n d s t a g e i s t o o u t p a c e competitors in terms of 3.5G networking speeds. At this stage, China Telecom can launch the transition from EV-DO Rev.A to Rev.B though software upgrading in major cities. In other words, the transition can be accomplished by bundling two or three carriers to EV-DO Rev.B, providing high-end customers with network rates comparable to HSPA. Customized services will build China Telecom’s competitive edge in the high-end market.

A d d i t i o n a l l y, r a m p i n g u p t h e replacement of legacy TDM Switches will prove to be quite helpful. The TDM-based core network is expected to be totally replaced by the IP-based core network within the next two years.

The third stage is to incorporate CDMA capabilities to LTE, the ultimate goal of global cellular mobile systems. It is well known that the 3.9G LTE adopts core 4G technologies, such as orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM), multiple input multiple output (MIMO) wireless technologies, and system architecture evolution (SAE) or evolved packed system (EPS).

At this stage, based on the 20MHz bandwidth: China Telecom will provide up and down link rates of 50Mbps and 100Mbps respectively, of which the spectrum efficiency is 4 times and 3 times that of HSDPA and HSUPA; shorten the time delay on the network control side and terminals to 100ms and 5ms; replace the circuit switch with packet switch equipment and deliver services like VoIP; concentrate on optimizing service performance at 15km/h and 120km/h, while meeting the requirements of high speed movement at 350km/h and 500km/h.

Notably, LTE is not a natural product of 3G evolution but a revolution in terms of core technologies. These core technologies will pave the way for new services.

LTE evolution

Thanks to strong support from the indust r y, the mains t ream s tandard WCDMA can readily evolve to LTE by removing challenges in backward compatibility. Backward compatibility of the CDMA is present. For example, the interoperability standard between LTE and EV-DO Rev.A is nearly completed and that of LTE between EV-DO Rev.B is expected to be completed in the near future. LTE/WCDMA/CDMA multi-mode chips, a necessity for real commercialization, are being developed.

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What is the evolutionary path of the CDMA network? China Telecom began to explore this topic as early as 2008. Similar to the evolution of other networks, CDMA networks should evolve to equally address short-term and long-term benefits, technical trends and market competition.

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Reviewing the mobile communication evolution over the past decades, it appears that from standard establishment to scalable use, each generation of mobile technology takes six or seven years, and usually at least one extra year longer than expected for large-scale commercialization. The “one year plus rule” is all too well-known in the mobile communication industry. It may be as reliable as Moore’s Law, which has accurately forecast the trend of chip development for decades. LTE evolut ion i s unl ike ly to break these development rules in the mobile communication industry.

WCDMA is just a case in point. It was predicted that by 2000, 3G would be mature and commercialized. But it was delayed for more than three years from the initial large-scale commercialization by Japan’s NTT in October 2001, to worldwide mature commercialization. At present, LTE is at the technical initiation stage according to the Gartner Curve. This stage is similar to WCDMA in 2000. As LTE standards are still nascent, according to the development rule, it will take about three years for LTE to be deployed commercially or another five to six years to be used widely.

Initial LTE applications are mostly data card services, which is the “LTE only” solution. The solution is simple and applied to energy-consuming scenarios such as notebooks and hotspot coverage and can be supported by current 45nm or 65nm CMOS technology. Of course, it could be supported by a new generation of mobile telecommunication technologies and provided by hotspot wireless access services like Wi-Fi, but is costly.

The next target for LTE evolution is to tackle challenges in the commercialization of mobile terminals , which is more challenging than data card services. In addition to the strong power, efficiency and solid coverage of LTE, the industry must address the high peak to average ratio and power consumption problems, which necessitates support from more advanced CMOS technologies.

According to chip manufacturers, only the 32nm CMOS technology can support high-end smart mobile phones; the large-scale commercialization of cost-effective

mid-range feature mobile phones needs support from 22nm CMOS technology. According to Moore’s Law, it takes about three years to develop these CMOS technologies. Considering uncertain factors such as spectrum, service demand, business model and regulatory policies, it would take three years for LTE to be commercially adopted in China or five to six years for it to be widely used.

From the g lobal perspect ive , the schedule for LTE commercialization will be: mobile phone tests in 2009; a few data card-based commercial systems at the second half of 2010; high-end smart mobile phones in 2012; and large-scale application of mid-range feature mobile phones after 2014. The evolution of CDMA2000 1xEV-DO to LTE complies with the preceding schedule.

Currently, there i s not suff ic ient motivation to evolve WCDMA to LTE because HSPA and HSPA+ can meet service demands for a long time and it would be a smooth evolution to LTE without rolling out new networks. Amid global financial and economic turbulence, this evolution is less risky, and that is precisely why leading telecom operators l ike Vodafone and France Te lecom recently announced postponement of LTE commercialization until 2012.

Compared with the WCDMA group, some leading CDMA operators take a more proactive approach due to a combination of internal and external factors. For instance, in the United States, Verizon feels compelled to promote LTE evolution due to the financial pressure from buying the 700MHz spectrum for 9 billion USD. Even so, they also announced a delay in LTE deployment. After considering all of its options, China Telecom is dedicated to LTE evolution, integrating CDMA into the international unified mode. We have initiated preliminary technical research and despite dedication to developing advanced technologies will not implement radical, high cost changes merely to keep a technological edge.

In my opinion, the practical approach for China Telecom is to optimize its CDMA networks by swiftly upgrading the EV-DO Rev.A to the Rev.B via software in cities where multi-carrier demands

concentrate and providing high-end customers with network rates similar to HSPA.

Moreover, China Telecom might develop LTE/CDMA interoperable and multi-mode terminals, conduct technical and field tests, pre-research service demands and business models in major cities. Once potential risks regarding spectrum, service demands, business models and regulatory policies are eliminated, China Telecom can then promote commercial use at hotspots in major cities, forming a seamless network pattern supported by CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 1×EV-DO Rev.A, CDMA2000 1×EV-DO Rev.B and LTE. From the long-term perspective, China Telecom would be wise to realize a holistic and peaceful evolution from CDMA to LTE.

Future R&D trends

Over the past years, China Telecom cont r ibu t ed l a rge l y in deve lop ing technology in the fo l lowing a rea s : softswitches, intelligent fixed networks, CN2, integrated service platforms, the Global Eye, xPON, my e-home, IPTV, BestTone, Unified Communication for Enterprises, vertical search engines, and differentiated broadband access control. Some of the services are cutting edge, world class achievements and in some areas , such as the softswitch, CN2, integrated service platform and EPON IOT, China Telecom has become a world leader.

Yet, we fall behind in the basic research in key technologies. In order to survive in the unfavorable business environment of recent years, we have to pool major resources to develop technologies and products that are closely related to business performance. Nonetheless, we can score big by investing our remaining limited resources in key areas. With the improving business environment, China Telecom will increase our investment in R&D, especially research for basic and future-oriented technologies and in turn will see a considerable contribution to the business performance.

Editor: Xue Hua [email protected]

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When it comes to basic broadband

There’s nothing better than WiMAX

Mr. Wu Hui is the President of Huawei CDMA&WiMAX Solution Sales Dept. Mr. Wu has more than ten years of experience in the communications field. He was once the President of Huawei CDMA Asia-Pacific Regional Dept, as well as the Chief Engineer of Huawei CDMA Solution Sales Dept.

he e sca la t ing popular i ty o f Internet services from streaming online videos to music search and hi-def movie downloads has been

spurred by ADSL. As demand for wireless data grows, networks become increasingly crowded. As the next generation standard of IEEE802.16, 802.16m can provide excellent ultra broadband performance cost-effectively, making WiMAX one of the best choices for the operators capitalizing on the prevailing interest in broadband Internet.

WiMAX, the ideal technology for basic broadband

Worldwide the use of broadband falls into two categories: basic broadband and enhanced broadband. Basic broadband enables broadband and provides a bedrock for broadband services. From basic we move in a very literal way to mobile broadband. While bas ic broadband

provides a strong foundation, enhanced broadband becomes a catalyst for growth.

Realizing basic broadband

As a main force in WiMAX development, Huawei believes that WiMAX is ultimately effective in providing broadband via wireless access. In many developing countries, where compound annual growth rate is as much as 40%, permeation of broadband is often less than 1%. Practical obstacles, such as limited cable resources, land acquisition, limited to no conduit resources and the exorbitant costs of cable network deployment, are typical impediments to broadband growth. It follows that there in these markets operators have to resort to wire less technologies to provide basic broadband. In some cases, expensive satellite access is adopted. In such circumstances, WiMAX becomes the best option for operators.

Looking at the Asian Pacific region we find many fixed network operators facing equivalent challenges as demand for wireless communication services grows. With

One of the most appealing characteristics of WiMAX is the allure of a well developed open patent pool which facilitates commercial applications worldwide. Lower cost, broader bandwidth, and highly flexible deployment complete the picture. Even in a global financial downturn, WiMAX remains a natural fit.

By Wu Hui

Tproven performance well in line with the mobile broadband growth trends of today’s markets, WiMAX is ideally positioned to allow these fixed network operators to remain competitive. For operators who lack copper resources, WiMAX is certainly the best choice.

At the same time, mobile network operators expect good returns from mature 3G networks. Here, WiMAX is a good complement for 3G networks. Rich in frequency spectrum resources, WiMAX uses either fixed or mobile approaches to meet the basic broadband demands of enterprises and home customers. Encouraging content providers, mobile broadband aims to provide broadband access to the Internet anytime and anywhere. Accordingly, service quality expectations move to a higher level. Once again, as the perfect 3G add-on for enabling abundant data services, WiMAX is the answer.

HSPA vs. WiMAX

Compared with basic broadband, enhanced broadband represents a high-

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Moreover, WiMAX’s ability to deliver the security of high QoS, fast transmission and abundant services is largely enabled by the adoption of advanced, future oriented technologies, such as OFDM/OFDMA, MIMO, and BeamForming. WiMAX allows users to access broadband wirelessly, at the same time, 3G networks enable users to access mobile services with broader bandwidth. So the trend will become more prevalent for 3G and WiMAX networks to converge. Huawei’s SingleRAN solution facilitates such convergence by using unified hardware platform with potential to evolve to 802.16m/LTE.

Proven business models

In the emerging markets, the demand for the basic broadband is more urgent. In these markets, the number of broadband users is relatively small. It is a better option for the operators to meet the demand for the basic broadband by using WiMAX and ADSL together. For operators with both 3G license and WiMAX license, two networks can be more cost-effectively developed in conjunction.

In the regions where the service demand is large, the operators generally use optical fibers and WiMAX. As the cost of optical fibers is relatively high, the operators can use WiMAX whose cost is lower to carry the huge traffic flow, and use optical fibers to meet the broadband demand with higher quality. This approach is the most cost-effective option for the operators. Therefore, this kind of market will exist for a long period, which will also propel the growth of WiMAX. After all, market is the driving force for the development of a technology.

Though bandwidth of 1 to 2Mbps is enough to meet the basic demand, the nations with a large population like India are still lacking sufficient frequency spectrum resources. In this case, WiMAX that is rich in frequency spectrum resources enjoys more benefits compared with other broadband technologies.

Globe Telecom in the Philippines provides just one example. With minimal frequency spectrum resources, Globe applied WiMAX to supplement its existing network capabilities. 50MHz frequency spectrum resources and low construction costs allowed Globe to offer users flexible tariffs that strengthened the company’s position as the second largest operator in the island nation.

Huawei supports future oriented WiMAX

As the leading provider of WiMAX solutions, Huawei believes a harmonious environment with

level need aiming to meet broadband needs anytime anywhere. Compared with WiMAX, HSPA features expensive frequency spectrum, high tariffs, wide coverage and great mobility. HSPA is corresponding relevant in mobile broadband markets. Increasing throughput over more economic spectrum resources, WiMAX is better qualified to meet market demand for basic broadband.

Symbiotically, HSPA and WiMAX provide a complementary network where each technology enhances the business potential of the other. HSPA offers broad coverage, responding to demand for mobile and basic broadband in the areas not covered by WiMAX. The viability of WiMAX extends outward urban concentrations to address demand for the basic broadband and sharing HSPA traffic loads.

By broadening an operator’s bandwidth service into enterprise access market, WiMAX also boosts profitability. This conjoined development model has proven effective in helping operators reduce risk while enhancing competitive strengths and, at the same time, allowing for unification of technology standards as telecoms evolve to 4G networks.

So we believe basic and enhanced broadband will subsequently continue to coexist and complement each other for many years to come. As the most viable solution for basic broadband, WiMAX can expect to see increased application and sustained relevance and technology chain support.

Technical superiority supports WiMAX continued growth

WiMAX represents a shift from IT to ICT, with an original architecture based on All-IP. Therefore, WiMAX has innate features of the Internet such as low cost and openness. The communication industry had a high threshold in the past. But the monopolized market pattern is not conducive to the prosperity of communication industry. The features of WiMAX enable more players to enter this industry, thus speeding up the technology development and the industry more prosperous.

Technical superiority

The irreplaceable technical superiority ensures that WiMAX will have a long lifespan.

Resources are the foundation for any network. Because of the uncluttered operating frequency band, low cost, rich frequency spectrum resources and great availability, WiMAX gives the operators more options, thus its ability to provide services is enhanced significantly.

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mutual benefits is essential for the continued prosperity of our industry.

Open collaboration

Huawei therefore fully supports open cooperation with other participants in the industry chain. We have three IOT laboratories across the world and all of them are open to the public. We welcome test proposals from other companies who may wish to join us and future minded operators.

Huawei occupies a leading position in WiMAX industry, but to continue our success, we must grow together with our partners. For growth in a globalized economy, neither key technologies nor standards should be monopolized. Over the past few years, Huawei has actively promoted open air interface and third party terminals.

Currently, more than ten third parties provide terminals to Huawei. Our spirit of cooperation extends to many other parties and, most notably, includes constant joint-lab interoperability testing between

Huawei and Intel in several of the world’s most important regions.

We have also been promoting the concept of benefit sharing. It is our sincere wish that the stakeholders within a healthy industry chain widen the market and share subsequent profits. While Huawei may lead in the number of WiMAX contracts under the 802.16e standard, we do want to stand alone. We are open to participating with other companies. There are many such instances. For Clearwire in the United States, we work alongside Samsung and Motorola; for Mobility in Saudi Arabia we cooperate with Samsung; to expedite Globe Telecom’s networks in Philippines, we introduced third-party terminals to promote WiMAX adoption rates.

Positive about future

Huawei has been promot ing the comb ined u s e o f WiMAX and 3G technologies to meet the global demand for broadband. Huawei’s WiMAX strategy is therefore clearly based on continuous long-term investment. Huawei began

research on 802.16 technology in 2000. For the better part of a decade, Huawei has evidenced strong commitment to pers istent innovation in support of WiMAX.

We believe the WiMAX industry is still in the initial phase of its commercial application. Prior to 2008, the technology was in the phase of preliminary evaluation and trial. From 2010 onward, WiMAX will experience fast development and maturity. This means WiMAX will benefit from maturity as much as two years ahead of LTE’s projected 2012/2013 timeline. For some regions, a phase of integrated networking will be appropriate while, due to insufficient 3G spectrum resources, others directly opt for mobile WiMAX.

Based on our flexible global strategies, by the end of September 2009, Huawei had signed 58 commercial contracts, including customers such as Clearwire in North America. Confident in our ability to assist operators realize ever greater business goals, we will spare no efforts in continuing our support of WiMAX.Editor: Yao Haifei [email protected]

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Cover StoryChina Unicom fueling 3G services with a WO

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hina Unicom launched a new 3G brand called WO in April 2009, representing a milestone in implementing China Unicom’s full-service

operation strategy. On October 1, 2009, WO began to provide commercial 3G services in 285 cities in China.

The brand WO will provide a platform that covers all services of China Unicom to individual, family, corporate and business customers, and supports customer service. It represents a new service concept and a spirit of innovation. It pronounces the same in Chinese and English, representing an exclamation on the power of technology. In the 3G era, WO will bring customers with splendid information and communications services.

To realize WO 3G service and achieve market success in China, it is crucial for China Unicom to have a high-quality WCDMA network and the network service provision capability. Huawei, as a key strategic partner of China Unicom, thoroughly understands the importance of a high-quality WCDMA network. With rich experience in global service deployment, we are expected to substantially boost the level of WO 3G service for China Unicom.

China Unicom fueling 3G serviceswith a WO

By Zhou Jianguo & Bian Ning

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Shanghai: covering various special scenariosSWFC: the world’s tallest building

The Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) is 492 meters high, with an area of 380,000 square meters, and can hold more than 40,000 people. Given the high density of Shanghai high-end users, China Unicom put high importance to network deployment in the building. The complex structure inside the building intensified the difficulty in network planning and construction.

• Challenge 1: Satisfying the huge high-end user base

The original traditional combination of GSM macro BTS and trunk amplifiers could not meet the requirements in terms of capacity, quality, and reliability for the high-end users inside the building. Also, maintenance costs were quite high. A prime requirement was to come up with a solution meeting the deployment requirements of the WCDMA network featuring high speed data throughput.

The new solution offered by Huawei met all the coverage requirements through a combination of 3 BBUs and 23 RRUs alone supporting a data throughout rate of up to 6.9Mbps per user. In comparison, the traditional trunk amplifier system requires more than double the amount of trunk amplifier modules and increases the failure rate at almost double the cost.

A t a n e a r l y s t a g e o f WC D M A n e t w o r k construction, by the end of 2009, over 110,000 Node Bs are expected to cover 335 cities across China. By the end of 2011, with a scale of more than 200,000 Node Bs and coverage of more than 75% of the total population, the network will rank first among all WCDMA networks worldwide.

Given the merits of WCDMA technology in terms of broadband networks, mobile terminals, service content and commercial use, China Unicom will focus on nine featured services: near field communication (NFC) card-swiping handsets, Mobile TV, wireless Internet access cards, video phones, mobile mailboxes, mobile music, mobile Internet, mobile search, and mobile IM.

In th e 2G e r a , t h e r e we re d eve l opmen t bottlenecks at China Unicom due to business scale and the coexistence of two networks. China Unicom furthered development by launching the WO 3G service and offering a platform with diversified functions to serve individuals, families, groups, and enterprises. The innovative WO 3G service is representative of China Unicom’s ambitions including expanding development and surpassing competitors in the mobile broadband field.

To develop a high-quality WCDMA/HSPA network and launch WO 3G, China Unicom cooperated with equipment providers including Huawe i . Huawe i was s e l e c t ed fo r ne twork cons t r uc t i on fo r i t s l e ad ing p roduc t s and solutions, rich experience in network planning and optimization, and strong engineering delivery capability.


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on the Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Line. The tested average HSDPA download speed reaches up to 1.8Mbps per user.

Based on its experience in network deployment for the Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Line, Huawei undertook network construction for the high-speed railway lines from Shanghai to Ningbo and from Shanghai to Hangzhou, greatly boosting the development of high-speed railways in the Yangtze River Delta.

China’s largest metro network

With a total length of 500km and a user base of 4.5 million, Shanghai’s metro system is the largest and the most complex in China. The urban high-speed transportation system in Shanghai, the metro system, is a major traffic artery and the dense traffic is a major concern of telecom operators.

With rich experience in urban network deployment across the world, Huawei proposed a WCDMA network construction solution for the Shanghai metro system. The solution has the following features: 1) Flexible arc-shaped anti-vibration installation; 2) RRU anti-electromagnetism capacity of up to level 3 to resist severe electromagnetic interference and 60 KA surge current; 3) Cell sharing among RRUs to ensure one handover inside and outside of a Node B; 4) A single location area

• Challenge 2: the complex elevator system

In the SWFC, nearly one hundred elevators run at the same time at speeds of up to 10 meters per second (the fastest in the world). It is a challenge to reduce the call drop rate during the switch when users are entering or exiting elevators, or staying inside the elevators.

By equipping elevator doors with leading antennas, Huawei can ensure that the signal quality inside and outside elevators is the same as that in the cell, avoiding call drops when users are getting in or getting out of elevators. Besides, through cell sharing among RRUs, signal quality in 90% of all the elevators is the same as that in the cell, which avoids handovers inside elevators. In fact, in the highest sightseeing elevator in the building, there are only two handovers per call. Additionally, leaky cables are used to ensure smooth handover.

• Challenge 3: multiple coverage requirements for skyscrapers

Huawei and China Unicom jointly worked out a solution for integrating and allocating RRU optical fibers to meet the various coverage requirements of user bases in skyscrapers. This solution supports f l ex ib le RRU networking based on

different traffic and coverage requirements.Due to the strong capability of Huawei’s

indoor coverage solution, in addition to the SWFC, Huawei has deployed WCDMA networks in other landmark buildings in Shanghai, such as the Jin Mao Tower and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

World’s fastest urban transport: the Shanghai Maglev Line

The Shanghai Maglev trains run at speeds of up to 431km/h. The speed drastically amplifies the Doppler frequency shift effect that is usually negligible.

This results in major challenges to network coverage along the railway line including: a decrease in cell handover performance and access success rates, soaring call drop rates and more user complaints along the train line.

Huawei set up the testing of WCDMA networks for the Shanghai Transrapid Maglev Line as far back as 2003. Within a few years, Huawei completed multiple patented algorithms for high-speed railways such as automatic frequency control (AFC), high-speed railway fast handover, cell sharing among multiple RRUs and prioritized handover in chain cells.

Through these algorithms, the number of Node Bs required for common railways is enough for a quality service experience

Huawei and China Unicom jointly worked out a solution for integrating and allocating RRU optical fibers to meet the various coverage requirements. With strong indoor coverage solution , Huawei has deployed WCDMA networks in landmark buildings in Shanghai, such as SWFC, the Jin Mao Tower and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

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code (LAC) cell configured for the metro system to avoid collective location updates; 5) Alleviated load on the metro system to enhance user experience. These features make for a hassle-free experience for all Shanghai metro mobile users.

Guangzhou: efficient delivery of a massive project

A s a n e c o n o m i c , c u l t u r a l , a n d transportation center in Southern China, Guangzhou is an attractive market for mobile telecom operators due to its high mobile communication penetration rate and huge demand for 3G services. As the host city of the 16th Asian Games in 2010, Guangzhou will attract millions of Asian athletes and visitors and the large-scale WCDMA network in Guangzhou has to be ready for business.

Based on successful experience in overseas WCDMA network deployment, Hu a w e i d e v e l o p e d a f u l l p r o c e s s management platform for site construction and drafted the standard site operation manual to manage Node Bs and systems.

With rich experience in engineering management for many years, Huawei developed the iSite as a site management IT system for communication engineering project management. The site management process standardized and visualized by iSite lets operators know the delivery progress of each site in their offices. The network is more automated and the operational efficiency is increased by 25%. Large-scale 3G site delivery is achieved, engineering quality and progress are managed and investment is protected.

Huawei solved problems arising from site testing and optimization through site quality management and site testing processes, and the GENEX network planning and optimization tools.

The first phase of the Guangzhou WCDMA project involves nearly 2,000 Node Bs. The Node B scale is ranked No.5 in China. By applying the iSite management system and the SOP for sites, Huawei’s elite team worked with China Unicom to ensure a successful pre-commercial trial on May 17th.

Chongqing: conquering the most complex wireless environment

• In February 2009, Huawei won the bid for China Unicom's WCDMA project, gaining access to the already developed communication markets in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing, and other coastal markets like Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Fujian.

• At 4:00 PM on February 11, 2009, Huawei assisted China Unicom make China's first non-trial urban WCDMA commercial video call in Guangzhou.

• In the early morning of February 12, 2009, Huawei assisted China Unicom in setting up a WCDMA video call facility in Shanghai and Qingdao. By March 5th, video calls could be made in nearly 20 major cities.

• On March 15, 2009, Huawei worked with China Unicom to deploy the first WCDMA network in Zhengzhou. The network deployment was completed in Nanchang on March 25th.

• On April 17, 2009, Huawei deployed the WCDMA network in over 20 major cities and started the network optimization stage before commercial use.

• On May 17, 2009, the WCDMA networks constructed by Huawei in major cities were put into pre-commercial use.• On Oct 1, 2009, China Unicom launched commercial WCDMA 3G service in 285 cities across China.

Milestones in the WCDMA project delivery for China Unicom in 2009

As the economic center in Southwest China, Chongqing, known as the City of Mountains, has uneven terrain, steep slopes and irregular streets. Moreover, the Yangtze and Jialing rivers run across the city, making it one of China’s more complex wireless communication environments.

The Yuzhong District is the richest and reflects the culture of Chongqing. The central part of the district is higher than the three surrounding areas facing the rivers, with differing elevations of up to 200m. Chongqing has a population of over 600,000 people within an area of 22km2. The average height of buildings and the average distance between buildings are 35m and 20m respectively, with a vertical gap up to 50m.

To c o n s t r u c t a n e t w o rk i n t h i s environment, Huawei adopted a ray tracking model and designed the best site planning solution by utilizing a 5m precise E-map and previous network planning report data. The solution adopted by Huawei covers the following aspects:

Fi r s t , i n t h e Yu z h o n g Di s t r i c t , surrounded by two rivers, a unique 3-sector and l80° antenna design was adopted to ensure service coverage and prevent signal interference.

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Second, in areas with high traffic concentration due to a dense and highly-mobile population, Node Bs were deployed along the street to absorb maximum traffic volume.

Third, antennas were situated at the central parts of tall building facades to control pilot frequency contamination and ensure service coverage of low buildings.

Fourth, antennas were installed at low positions that are surrounded by higher buildings which serve as a natural block for wireless signals to cover surrounding buildings from an upward angle and improve wireless coverage.

Finally, the down-tilt angles of high Node Bs were adjusted to 24° to prevent higher Node Bs from interfering with lower ones.

By integrating and applying experience in global wireless network deployment to complex situations in Chongqing, Huawei has addressed various difficulties in network construction and optimization, d e l i v e r e d t h e W C D M A n e t w o r k successfully, and diversified user experience for the people of Chongqing.

Professionalism guarantees success

To build a high-quality network, Huawei has adopted a Regional Project Manager (RPM) model to manage the WCDMA project with China Unicom. The RPM model is designed to meet high-end European operator requirements for large-scale network delivery.

The key feature of this model is the hierarchical and orderly management of labor, resources, equipment, time, and regions. To ensure the successful delivery of the world’s largest WCDMA commercial network at China Unicom, Huawei adopted the RPM system to provide integrated management and shared platforms in terms of planning, m a n a g e m e n t , c o m m u n i c a t i o n , coordination, reporting, project progress, cost and team performance. In this way, the WCDMA network can be quickly put into commercial use.

Although a late starter in the 2G era, Huawei is an industry pioneer in the 3G era and has invested heavily in WCDMA ne twork s s inc e 1998 . By the f i r s t quarter of 2009, Huawei has signed 139 contracts regarding the commercial use of WCDMA/HSPA networks and is serving more than half of global WCDMA/HSPA operators.

Huawei’s success in WCDMA can be attributed to its long-term efforts. A good example of this is the number of patents. Huawei currently possesses 259 WCDMA core patents, accounting for 9% of total patents. Since 2006, Huawei has been strenuously explored high-end markets like Japan, Western Europe and North America while ramping up R&D.

In addition to rapid expansion in overseas markets, Huawei also pays close attention to the Chinese market. To construct a high-quality WCDMA network within a short time for China Unicom, Huawei formed a robust operations platform comprised of over 5,000 people including over 300 project managers and technical experts, 1000 field wireless engineers and dozens of subcontractors with extensive experience in 3G network construction and network optimization in overseas markets such as Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America and Japan. With this wealth of experience deploying 139 WCDMA/HSPA ne tworks fo r commercial use across the globe, Huawei is expected to bring a wider range of mobile broadband service experience for China Unicom’s 3G users.

Editor: Pan Tao [email protected]

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nforma, the leading media information provider, predicts that the number of global mobile broadband subscribers will exceed fixed broadband subscribers during 2010, before exploding to 2

billion by 2013. At that time, 80% of all broadband users are expected to be mobile subscribers, a staggering 1.5 billion of whom will be new to the service.

Underpinned by a recently matured industry chain, mobile broadband development has globally shifted up a gear. A wide variety of intelligent terminals and high speed data cards are available, diverse web applications and new Internet content

are constantly hitting the market, and operators are setting pricing strategies to maximally penetrate market segments.

The global financial crisis has promoted HSPA and HSPA+ as the optimum choices for the major mobile operators, including EMOBILE, Vodafone, as they shift to mobile broadband. The European operator, TeliaSonera, and America’s Verizon Wireless have announced plans to construct LTE networks in 2009, with small scale commercial deployment set for 2010. The era of mobile broadband has unequivocally arrived.

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The rise of mobile broadbandBy Li Xiaojuan

The rise of mobile broadband

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EMOBILE began offering a voice service over mobile broadband in March 2008, but it was not a pure voice strategy. The service incorporates voice into the operator’s data card, which acts as a data modem, and is accessed via a second terminal such as an intelligent mobile phone or palmtop computer. If a subscriber’s phone is lost or out of power, however, the data card can act as a substitute mobile voice terminal.

“Content i s k ing” preva i l s in the mobi le broadband sector and operators have for some time feared devolving into mere data pipes at the expense of profit. EMOBILE has proactively shaken up this belief by constructing an open equipment and service platform that allows subscribers to choose any terminal, access all computer functions, and freely enjoy streamed media content, financial news, interactive games and security services. Dr. Semmoto, EMOBILE’s founder, Chairman and CEO justified this innovative strategic approach, “We are confident in providing a pipe. It is a pipe, but it is a GREAT pipe. High speed, flat-rate mobile broadband data is in itself a differentiated service.”

Differentiated network construction

Given the maturity of the Japanese market and intense competitive pressures, EMOBILE’s networking strategy has centered on low-cost deployment, differentiated coverage, and high-speed service provision.

Japan is a densely populated and highly urbanized country; 12 of its cities house over 1 million people, including Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, and an additional 70 medium sized cities comprise a spread of city clusters. In terms of transportation, Japan’s railway network is notably dense. Its high-speed Shinkansen bullet trains and subway systems carry huge numbers of daily users and are a key infrastructure feature of bustling cities such as Tokyo.

EMOBILE aligned its network design with Japan’s demographics to achieve differentiated coverage: First, small and easily installed distributed base stations were used to simplify site acquisition, expedite deployment, and minimize CAPEX and OPEX in major cities with over 1 million inhabitants. Second, a customized indoor coverage solution was employed to cover hotspots such as subways and marketplaces. Third, EMOBILE and DOCOMO signed a roaming agreement to guarantee coverage for thinly populated and peripheral areas.

EMOBILE is a mobile subsidiary of eAccess, Japan’s third largest broadband operator. When EMOBILE began constructing its HSPA network, the operator opted to fully exploit its parent company’s rich IP transport resources to develop

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EMOBILE: a new force in Japan’s mobile market

In December 2007, EMOBILE became Japan’s first mobile operator to domestically launch 7.2Mbps HSDPA services. The operator followed this in November 2008 with the nation’s first HSUPA services, offering an uplink rate up to 1.4Mbps. In July 2009, EMOBILE further evidenced its pioneering drive with Japan’s first 21Mbps HSPA+ services.

As a relative newcomer to the Japanese market, EMOBILE’s initial entry was against a backdrop of 75% mobile penetration with a prevalence of postpaid subscribers. Despite intensive competition, EMOBILE attracted over 1.4 million subscribers within just two years. The young operator hopes to consolidate its early gains given the expectation that second terminal ownership will add 30 million new subscribers to the market.

Unique business model

Although Japan boasts one of the world’s highest mobile ARPU at 55 USD per month, mobile phone usage is relatively low due to high charges, laws, and certain cultural restrictions that, for example, dictate phone silence in restaurants and on public transport. These conditions have reduced average airtime per user to as little as 154 minutes per month, meaning that a large percentage of ARPU in Japan derives from mobile data services.

Responding to this trend and departing from traditional operators’ models, EMOBILE based its market entry exclusively on mobile broadband data provision under the belief that mobility is destined to dominate the entire broadband market.

Eric Gan, the President and COO of EMOBILE, explained, “We started off with data customers and slowly moved into the voice market. That’s very different from traditional carriers for whom voice is the main business, and if they have some time, they do some data. The mobile data market is a very new area. We were very fortunate to have the new spectrum and to have built a new network with HSPA from scratch in record time.”

Japanese mobile subscribers are highly sensitive to bandwidth, partly as a result of the nation’s particular emphasis on quality. EMOBILE has sought to outpace traditional operators by offering high bandwidth and continuously launching new mobile services at even higher speeds. Currently, the operator is following the evolutionary roadmap from HSPA+ to LTE to realize its long-term aims.

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an All-IP transport solution to carry its HSPA services. EMOBILE’s technical division identified that network planning could be simplified and construction and maintenance costs curtailed as the All-IP transport solution would both save access network resources and reuse eAccess’s original IP backbone network.

In terms of network planning and maintenance, Dr. Watanabe, a Japanese telecom consultant, described: “Speaking of network planning and maintenance, operators still favor Japan’s experience as Japan differs largely from other countries and regions in terms of construction and network planning.” EMOBILE and Huawei drew from several countries to establish a high quality network planning t e am. To en su re tha t th e ne twork planning flow conformed to traditional Japanese practices and ensured rapid implementation, the team planned sites based on areas before cooperating with local engineering companies to negotiate in given priorities.

Vodafone: smooth mobile travel

W h e n a t r a i n w h i z z e d t h r o u g h Vodafone’s Huawei-deployed UMTS network at 250km/h in November 2005, the voice call success rate remained a solid 99.7%. Equally, video telephone and high speed Internet access services remained unimpaired.

In recent years, increasing number of business travelers are choosing the comfort of trains, providing they can enjoy the mobile services necessary to conduct business on the move. In Europe and Japan, high speed railways can reach 200-350km/h, including the ICE in Germany, France’s TGV and the Shinkansen in Japan. Moreover, the maglev trains in Shanghai have topped speeds of 430km/h, and China intends to consolidate with 40,000km express railway track. Convenient railway transportation can change the nature of travel modes, though integral to doing so is the capability of guaranteeing communication services under rapid speed.

This challenge has plagued both mobile

operators and equipment vendors. A high speed train is subject to a strong Doppler shift and signal penetration loss can exceed 20dB. Additionally, rapid transit causes a high handover failure rate and frequent network drops.

Huawe i ha s p roposed a number of feasible solutions to mitigate these problems: First, special access channel automatic frequency control (AFC) and dedicated channel AFC algorithms improve base station receiver performance; second, innovat ive mult i -RRU ce l l technology dramatically reduces the n u m b e r o f h a n d ov e r s , a n d t h i rd , diversified handover schemes improve the rate of successful handovers across varied scenarios.

Ongoing mobile broadband construction

The successful deployment of mobile broadband systems by mainstream global operators has given the industry optimism about the future of mobile broadband and is catalyzing further network deployment. Mobile broadband network construction, however, is far from easy when pushing the essential values of full coverage, high performance, reliability, and strong management. Balancing mobility and bandwidth, coverage and performance, and traffic and gain are all extremely tricky.

When network bandwidth reaches 100Mbps, base station density multiplies by 50, and transport and O&M costs increase correspondingly. Furthermore, 70% of Internet traffic fails to bring any direct gains to operators and so, eventually, the per-bit cost and gain curves diverge. This is the most prominent bottleneck that compromises the rapid development of mobile broadband services.

Is there a different networking idea that can help mobile broadband better develop? Based on its comprehensive understanding o f mobi l e b roadband , Huawe i ha s proposed a four point solution plan:

First is to enable hierarchical networking at the access layer and full coverage across different scenarios using “two clouds”. Analysis reveals that the indoor areas require high speed data and thus mobile broadband

should be strong where subscriber density is high. The indoor Pico base station is the best tool to guarantee coverage in hotspot areas. Conversely, a macro base station can provide continuous voice and low rate data services where subscriber density is low.

Through hierarchical “two clouds” ne twork ing , an ope r a to r a ch i e ve s continuous, low cost coverage across the entire network. More importantly, the operator can respond to different subscriber densities appropriately and effectively differentiates the mobile broadband service experience.

Second, flat network architecture a ch i e ve s h i e r a r ch i c a l b e a r ing and proximate Internet traffic distribution to reduce transport costs.

Third, converged network architecture and resource management guarantee seamless services for different scenarios. As an advocator of SingleRAN, Huawei’s SingleRAN solution is the first to achieve network level convergence from network architecture to resource management. The solution shares, for example, network planning, optimization, and O&M, and facilitates co-site deployment to achieve convergence in the real sense.

Fourth, the self-organized network (SON) solution automates organization, management, adaptation and adjustment in base stations to implement intelligent and simple network maintenance. The SON can also enable low O&M costs, and efficient, stable and secure network operations.

Huawei’s global experience in mobile broadband network deployment has proven that new networking ideas not only reduce TCO and improve profitability for operators, but also raise their brand equity by giving end users seamless and high quality mobile broadband service experiences.

Having demonstrated its outstanding performance capability in the mobile broadband sector, Telecom Asia selected Huawei as the winner of the 2008 Wireless Broadband Network Vendor of the Year award. Indeed, Huawei believes that mobile broadband not only enhances bandwidth, but also people’s lives.

Editor: Pan Tao [email protected]

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Main Topic

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Compact, versatile, converged

here’s FemtocellFemtocell is a miniature mobile base station aligned to 3G and mobile broadband development. It is small, highly useful, and offers full and cost-effective indoor 3G coverage. With its multitude of advantages, Femtocell is set to create new business opportunities and open up a huge market for operators.

By Liu Xianjiang

Improving 3G indoor coverage

Two issues must be solved to realize effective 3G indoor coverage:

First, black spot coverage. Most 3G mobile broadband networks work at high frequencies, and their radio signal penetrat ion i s l e s s than that of 2G networks covered by outdoor base stations working at 800MHz or 900MHz. Huawei has identified that, in certain scenarios, 3G signal losses caused by walls can be 35% higher than is the case with 2G signals. This results in numerous indoor black spots.

Se c o n d , s o l i d c ove r a g e . Un l i k e continually robust outdoor signals, higher data speeds proportionally weaken indoor signals. For example, signals at 384Kbps give an outdoor proportion of coverage (POC) of up to 98%, but this drops to 67% for indoor POC. Furthermore, macro cells in a 3G CDMA network suffer from the cell breathing effect, which reduces coverage under high concurrent traffic conditions and compromises the quality of indoor services.

Indoor services account for 70% of operators’ total traffic and income. Not only is it vital for operators to guarantee network coverage to retain subscribers, but they must also satisfy the demand of 3G subscribers for value-added services, which can include browsing the web or watching HDTV at home through a 3G phone. Most operators suggest deploying macro cell base stations outdoors and Femtocell base stations indoors to guarantee indoor 3G network coverage.

Converged home networks

The l aunch o f HomeZone i s an important step for StarHub to realize fixed-mobile convergence. Through Femtocell, HomeZone subscribers can directly access StarHub’s f ixed broadband network through their 3G phones. Moreover, StarHub allows users to access the fixed broadband network to place voice or video calls, and send short messages for free.

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A

Compact, versatile, converged: here’s Femtocell

t the end of 2008, Singapore’s StarHub garnered industry-wide attention as the f i rs t o p e r a t o r t o l a u n c h a 3 G

based Femtocell service “HomeZone”. StarHub customers can enjoy quality 3G and broadband services at a 7.2Mbps download speed by installing Femtocell base stations which act as portable indoor radio access devices provided by Huawei. Services include IPTV, entertainment, the Internet, video conference, and a range of mobile services.

Femtocell is a client product targeted a t homes and sma l l - and med ium-sized businesses. Users reconnect their computers’ or ig ina l ADSL or LAN to Femtoce l l to acce s s 2G and 3G communication services and the Internet at home. The technology is destined to help operators change the current stagnant market climate through differentiated competition.

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Subscribers needn’t pay extra costs and are not impacted with network handover issues, and the package is highly attractive to frequent mobile phone users.

The range of terminals available to home subscribers continues to expand w i th an a r r ay o f f i xed and mob i l e phones, laptops, netbooks and TVs. Correspondingly, subscriber demand is increasing for unified access, billing, and the interoperability of terminals and multiple services.

Femtocel l represents an effect ive FMC solution. Home installation gives subscribers quality signal coverage and delivers diversified converged services at a cheaper price. Users can access the Internet at home and switch to mobile network outdoors to reduce fees.

In the short-term, Femtocell’s Internet broadband and mobi le capabi l i t i e s accomplish effective service bundling for households, and act as a platform for operators to introduce new pricing and service packages to meet a more diverse range of needs. Femtocell allows operators to provide unique billing strategies with a single number and bill for one family. By launching tariff strategies for the home, an operator can bundle all family members into the Femtocell package so that they exclusively access that operator’s diverse range of services.

In the long-term, Femtocell will be integrated into home gateways to create a new service convergence platform and realize the quadruple-play of the Internet, TV, fixed, and mobile services. Currently, over 20 operators are exploring home based converged services, including British Telecom’s “BT Fusion”, France Telecom’s “Orange Link” and Singapore Telecom’s “mio”.

Raising profitability

While mobile broadband traffic and the income of many 3G operators have increased over the past two years, they have done so at different rates. For some time, operators have seen massive traffic increases accompanied by a sluggish rise in income. This is attributable to rapidly rising costs, but a more or less static

ARPU. The Femtocell solution gives operators

a new method for traffic and income to grow in parallel. Femtocell facilitates rapid and effective network construction in a way that caters to hotspot areas and does not require investment in an extensive network. Femtocell also carries macro cell traffic, which eliminates the need to expand both the outdoor macro cell network and base station coverage. In this way, Femtocell ensures high speed data connections in the 3G network.

To dramatically improve indoor signal coverage, Femtocell can help operators enhance broadband and voice service quality. Each Femtocell equals one base station in terms of the extent to which it increases network capacity. Femtocells are purchased by subscribers and utilize subscribers’ broadband access circuits, thus reducing the CAPEX that operators need to invest in network equipment and in expanding base station links.

Since Femtocells are placed at homes, operators are rel ieved of equipment room maintenance, power supply, air conditioning and circuit maintenance. Compared with traditional macro cell and base stations, Femtocells demonstrably lower O&M costs, OPEX, and CAPEX.

Owing to the excellent indoor coverage provided by Femtocell, operators can provide targeted, high quality home service packages that can enhance existing customer loyalty, attract new subscribers, and raise ARPU by promoting a wide range of services.

In addition to Femtocell services for the home, operators can provide small-and medium-sized businesses with commercial Femtocell services. In January 2009, Vodafone and Huawei jointly deployed a pilot system for a Femtocell enterprise gateway solution. The pilot project is designed to provide corporate subscribers with a special Vodafone access gateway. The solution’s ability in enhancing indoor broadband access will then be evaluated, especially with respect to indoor high speed data services and voice services.

Bringing new opportunities

Femtocell’s miniature and home based advantages create a blue ocean for operators to improve indoor 3G coverage and provide FMC services through a home gateway. This will doubtlessly add considerable value for existing and new subscribers. Vodafone, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, Verizon and other leading operators are clamoring to test and deploy Femtocell and exploit its vast potential. Huawei has deployed over 21 Femtocell pre-commercial and pilot projects worldwide, in addition to the world’s first commercial network for StarHub.

Huawei’s world leading Femtocell products incorporate automatic network planning and optimization functions. Operators can easily build a network and provide subscribers with the simplicity of the plug and play experience. Huawei’s Femtocell is also the first to support IP clock synchronization, allowing operators to deploy networks in areas without a 3G macro cell network. DSL-based bandwidth and HSPA data throughput provide indoor mobile broadband services with a download speed of up to 7.2Mbps.

Femtocell users primarily fall into three groups: business users, the young and trendy, and families with children. For each, operators need to design appropriate, diverse service packages. While Femtocell is a fascinating product, it is currently questionable whether subscribers are prepared to buy an access point (AP). However, specialists believe that APs will enter homes in two ways:

Black spot coverage: Operators bear all AP costs to retain customers. For example, Sprint provides free APs to supply QoS-assured mobile services.

Low price or unlimited voice: Operators allow subscribers to rent or buy APs with certain benefits. At present, subscribers are not familiar with Femtocell and the cost is high. To be viable, operators have to presently pay some of the costs. However, w i th the d rop in p r i c e o f APs and increased subscriber awareness, operators wil l be quickly rel ieved of this cost burden. For example, StarHub offers free leasing to attract subscribers, which has demonstrably retained existing users, won new subscribers, and increased ARPU.

Editor: Xu Peng [email protected]

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How to Operate

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The power of European 3G

The power of European 3GBarack Obama promoted change as the theme for his presidential campaign. Across the world, people are driven by the expectation of change as a means of improving the lives of individuals and society as a whole. In the telecom world, European multinational mobile operators are proactively developing and evolving their mobile networks. However, change is a dynamic process: What changes are mobile networks likely to experience in the near future? Will these changes add commercial value for operators?

By Zhao Yuan

Waves of change

SM has its origins in Europe and the region is thus a natural advocate o f UMTS. Since the first UMTS commercial

network was deployed in 2001, over 200 have been constructed globally, which now serve nearly 300 million subscribers. Western Europe enjoys the largest UMTS market share of around 46%, and this is still rising. As a paradise of UMTS,

GWestern Europe enjoys high ARPU and strong data service demands. Operators are fully familiar with UMTS technologies and many supplement their expertise with strong R&D capabilities. They have in place strict network performance requirements and consistently strive to innovate technologies and products.

Vodafone, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica O2, and Deutsche Telekom (DT) exemplify the power of European multinational operators. Nevertheless , these mobile te lecom

giants are not immune to the challenges facing the communications world. The dynamism of mobile telecom technologies is hastening the obsolescence of legacy GSM/UMTS networks, which are already competitively weak. European operators are faced with the conflict of evolving their networks while protecting existing investment. In fact, most have been transforming since 2007. As a result of extensive network construction projects, swapping schemes, and O&M experience, we can look to Europe to provide valuable

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Huawei Communicate

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Huawei’s extensive and proven delivery experience is exemplified by its strong distributed base stations that facilitate rapid network deployment. In May 2007, Huawei constructed about 1,150 sites and several radio network controllers (RNCs) for Telecom Italia in Sicily and Calabria. The quickest delivery time previously recorded by the operator was 35 stations per week, but the Huawei team shattered this with an impressive peak of more than 50 per week. The adjusted network displays a remarkably improved performance, with CS domain access improved by 2% and the CS domain call drop rate lowered from 0.65% to 0.3%. In 2008, Telecom Italia re-selected Huawei to swap its networks in Apulia and Basilicata. The project involves deploying near 750 base stations to form an entire HSPA network in the drive to sustain Telecom Italia’s market prominence.

T-Mobile Czech Republic: leading with optimization

DT’s T-Mobile is a leading mobile brand, serving 128 million subscribers across the globe. As the most prosperous country in East Europe, the Czech Republic’s mobile telecom market has realized the elusive three highs: ARPU, penetration, and technology. T-Mobile Czech Republic is one of T-Mobile’s five subsidiaries; hugely successful, it enjoys a robust 40% market share, the largest subscriber base, and the nation’s highest operating income.

T-Mobile Czech Republic obtained its 3G license early in 2002. Doubting the future profitability of 3G networks, however, the operator postponed all deployment plans. Although the Czech network is not the largest of T-Mobile subnetworks, it is specially positioned. T-Mobile is a highly innovative company tha t f requent ly t r i a l s cut t ing edge technologies and services in the Czech Republic before deployment in other subnetworks. T-Mobile is especial ly interes ted in LTE. For thi s reason, T-Mobile Czech Republic is the natural platform through which T-Mobile can test

lessons for other developing 3G markets.

Telecom Italia: leading with rapid construction

The Italian 3G market and the number of UMTS subscribers are both growing rapidly. In Europe as a whole, the 3G market is mature and major operators are increasing investment in innovative 3G services in a bid to win pole position in the 3G field.

Telecom Italia is one of the world’s top ten leading multinational operators. Its subsidiary, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), boasts the second largest domestic 3G market share. It has around 33 million Italian mobile subscribers, of whom 7.3 million subscribe to UMTS.

To consolidate its success, the operator realized that interactive value-added and high speed mobile services would form the breakthrough points to accelerate 3G service innovation. In the context of its legacy network, however, there was great room for improvement in terms of equipment capacity and network coverage. Furthermore, supplier delivery capacity was inadequate, the UTRAN roadmap underdeveloped, and its network expansion scheme hindered by the need for extensive hardware replacement and the impossibility o f 2G/3G convergence . Through a comprehensive evaluation process that involved several stages, Telecom Italia recognized Huawei as the partner to rebuild its old network.

Mo b i l e m a r k e t c o m p e t i t i o n i s increasingly fierce. Time is the lifeblood of network construction and forms the major issue faced by all 3G operators: How can construction lead time be minimized? What is the best way to rapidly implement innovative services?

The history of telecom operations shows that when all other conditions are equal, an extra 5% market share is gained if a network’s commercial deployment time is reduced by a month, which then increases to 20% if the deployment time is reduced by 3 months. For operators, the benefits of a rapid and efficient construction process are clearly apparent.

LTE technology.Since T-Mobile Czech Republic’s legacy

GSM network featured outdated network equipment, inadequate performance, and a nearly exhausted lifecycle, the operator knew that GSM network modernisation was required, though the associated difficulties and costs were a constant concern. However, while other domestic operators were planning to launch new 3G services, T-Mobile Czech Republic hopes to improve data service capability. Further more its network equipment was extremely power hungry, which completely removed any OPEX advantage.

At the end of 2007, T-Mobile Czech Republic decided to rebuild its network. T-Mobile’s team of technology experts evaluated Huawei’s GSM technology a s good cho ice fo r T-Mobi l e GSM modernizat ion strategy. Par t of the eva luat ion proces s invo lved power consumption and maximum output power tests on Huawei 4th generation base station and BSCs. The operator’s specialists concluded that the Huawei products reduced power consumption by a very satisfactory 45%.

“You may ask why to replace the functioning equipment? Some of the BTSs have been working for more than 12 years. Even if they have been continuously improved, the development is far away,” explained Heinz Schmid, a then CTO of T-Mobile Czech Republic. He added that: “New equipment brings significantly higher capacity and enables the operator to offer customers new services, e.g. high-speed data, in the whole network.”

In June 2008, T-Mobile Czech Republic formally chose Huawei 4th generation base stations to rebuild its GSM network and replace nearly 4,500 GSM base stations and 150 BSCs. Huawei’s latest innovative base station supports GSM, UMTS, and LTE through one hardware platform and the system can be updated through a simple software upgrade to protect equipment investment. T-Mobile Czech Republic will be able to provide more abundant high-speed data services across the whole network; support WAMR for better voice quality; and roll out a rich range of new, diversified services.Editor: Chen Yuhong [email protected]

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Operators are facing many challenges in operating a profitable mobile broadband business. Huawei’s mobile broadband (MBB) network strategy can help operators overcome some of the challenges by gaining more and spending less via a golden pipe.

Turn the dumb pipe into golden pipe

By Cui Jinglong


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uawei’s mobile broadband network strategy consists of four core elements. The first is advanced technology

such as HSPA+, LTE and E2E native IP to maintain an operator’s leading position. The second aims to provide enhanced end user experience to stimulate big valuable volume. The third refers to cost reduction. The last but not least is to dominate the value chain with new business models and technologies like comprehensive application programming interface (API), deep packet inspection (DPI) and policy and charging control (PCC).

Advanced strategy

Technologies act as an enabler for evolution, especial ly in the telecom industr y. Major mobi le broadband technologies like HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE can promote an operator’s brand and enhance customer loyalty while delivering continuous strength and reliability.

Huawei constantly provides innovative mobile broadband solutions, including HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE solutions. Besides deploying the world’s first pure HSPA solution for Vodafone Spain, Huawei also launched the world’s first commercial 2G/3G convergent All-IP solution in Kuwa i t STC. For HSPA+, Huawe i launched the 21Mbps commercial network with StarHub in 2009 and also HSPA for

H EMOBILE in Japan.Huawei is testing 64QAM with tier

1 operators like Vodafone, Telefonica, StarHub, as well as testing MIMO with Telefonica, Telus and Bell. In recognition of these efforts, Huawei was awarded the Wireless Broadband Network Vendor of the Year by Telecom Asia.

Simulation results show that 64QAM can enhance data throughput to 21Mbps. With the help of “2×2 MIMO+16QAM” and “dual carriers”, 28Mbps and 42Mbps d a t a t h r o u g h p u t c a n b e a c h i e v e d respectively. Compared with the R99 network, HSPA can increase circuit switch users by 45% and VoIP users by 48%. For users to download 3MB PPT files, the time is significantly shortened when HSPA or HSPA+ is used.

LTE will be the ultimate home of all today’s technologies. When and how LTE is deployed in networks today is crucial for future success. Huawei’s answer is SingleRAN. SingleRAN can accommodate the LTE evolution of various technologies and networks, including GSM, UMTS, CDMA, and TD-SCDMA, through only software upgrade in radio.

In June 2009, Huawei finished the world’s f irst LTE mobile broadband connection with TeliaSonera in Norway. As a major 3GPP contributor, Huawei has gained more than 14% of all patents, and ranks No.1 in LTE patent with more than 1,500 LTE contributions. Huawei is also a next generation mobile network (NGMN)

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Huawei Communicate

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sponsor and LTE/SAE Trial Initiative (LSTI) board member.

Big valuable volume

Big valuable volume is key for operators to operate profitable mobile broadband network, which could be obtained by enhancing end user experience. This can be achieved in three ways: The first is to raise the amount of valuable traffic; Second is to break bottlenecks through future mobile broadband transmission; Third is using location based services to fulfill customer expectations.

Conve rg ed PCC and O&M can contribute to a unified core network for radio access. The coverage strategy varies with different scenarios. In urban and residential areas, Femtocell or ePico is preferred to enhance coverage and provides high speed data, as these areas require high network performance. In CBD areas, outdoor coverage can be realized through macro cells and indoor coverage through ePico and Femtocell.

I n f u t u r e m o b i l e b r o a d b a n d transmission, the packet transport network (PTN) will play a pivotal role. Composed o f p a cke t and SDH t e chno log i e s , the PTN converges access control by accommodating various standards, media and scenarios. The QoS is simplified to gain a high constringency ratio. With a unified network management system (NMS), the O&M center can be more intel l igent with future transmission adaptability greatly improved.

Location based services are stimulated by rewarding use. End user habits and rewards a re two key e l ement s . For traditional mobile networks, it is difficult to know what the end user’s habits are and which applications are used in the network.

If the network is more visible, more knowledge of users’ habi t s and the application information are gained and then operators can actively guide the services to end users according to different locat ions with divers i f i ed content . According to various end user habits and location information, operators can target the users’ requirements and promote

like local news, shopping information or entertainment venues and schedules.

Cost reduction

To help operators growing future prof i t s , Huawei recommends three solutions to reduce costs: covering sites, transmission and O&M.

The SingleRAN solution can greatly help to reduce site cost. In addition, Pico, Femtocell, distributed base station, Micro cell solutions can ease site acquisition, while the UMTS900 solution can reduce the number of sites by 60%. With these technologies, site costs can be reduced by about 80%. We can also reduce the costs by 70% using various backhaul solutions, different QoS strategies and Gi offload solutions. With the help of self-organizing network (SON) and the s impl i f i ed maintenance enabled by SingleRAN, the O&M cost can be greatly reduced. As a result, a real savings of 70% per bit can be realized.

SingleRAN

SingleRAN is one network for al l technologies. SingleRAN indicates uni-equipment, uni-site and uni-operation. Uni-equipment refers to a unified platform for the BTS/BSC and Node B/RNC to enable smooth evolution. Uni-site means that for the transmission sources, auxiliary equipment such as air conditioners can be shared. Uni-operation is to unify the radio network planning organization, s u c h a s c o - OA M , c o -TRM, and co-RRM. The SingleRAN solution is set to enable one network for long-term availability, one network for maximized savings of TCO and one team for optimized human resources.

Two clouds

Huawei has introduced the two clouds concept to its mobile broadband strategy.

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The first cloud is high speed, while the other is continuous.

Each cloud should have a different coverage strategy, QoS, service support and capacity. For example, the continuous cloud applied in remote and rural areas needs to support speeds of less than 256Kbps with EDGE or UMTS900. For the high speed cloud in urban and hotspot areas, the speed should be more than 512Kbps and 2Mbps respectively with HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE technology recommended.

Take Optus for example. Optus co-sited its UMTS900 network with GSM900 network. As the carrier bandwidth is only 4.2MHz, Optus adopted the Huawei solution to ensure solid and reliable network performance. In this solution, sharing antennas and feeders enabled a mere 0.6dB insertion loss in downlink. For the uplink, no tower mounted amplifier (TMA) was needed and no insertion loss was recorded, with over 60% reduction in the number of sites.

Differentiated QoS

QoS should be focused on subscription category and service priority. It is best to use a high QoS level to secure VIP and valuable services, while employing a best-effort strategy for other services. Take Internet services as an example, they are bandwidth hogs, but play a big role in mobile services and fortunately are not sensitive to QoS issues.

Gi offload

The Gi offload is an amazing solution to cut down the transmission offload. The core idea for the Gi offload is that some QoS guarantee solutions should be carried in the traditional network, while other services like Internet services can be carried in other networks.

The Gi flow for Node B means the Gi flow can be first applied to home zones and enterprises, and then the upper network layers. With selective traffic bearing and breakout functionality, the solution can greatly reduce the transmission costs.

SON

With SON technology, Node Bs and future eNode Bs can act as the auto-neighbor relation (ANR) center, auto-update strategy center and configuration file center. The SON acts as an intelligent device center.

Future 2G to 3G evolution and expansion can be done by the network itself. Installation and O&M are easier, while experiences can be shared. Remote commissioning and upgrades can reduce

site construction and costs. SON makes mobile broadband management more intelligent.

2G, 3G, and future LTE networks require different OSS teams. With SingleRAN, only one team for network O&M is needed, thanks to its unified configuration, maintenance, unified alarm, performance and status monitoring. SingleRAN means one team for all tasks and team members can inherent experience, while extending their maintenance routines.

Dominating the value chain

In today’s mobile networks, operators have to expand bandwidth continuously which shrinks profit margins. To ensure future mobile broadband profitability, the pipe needs to be visible, manageable and of course, profitable.

Operators need more network details. Based on detailed traffic information, QoS control and charging strategies can be performed to enable a manageable network and a triple win business model, in which operators, SP/CPs, and end users can benefit from network operations.

Service usage report (SUR) lets operators see throughout the network and learn about which protocols, amount of bandwidth and applications are being used. The SUR can then be used by operators to analyze user habits and behavior.

PCC architecture can be employed to enable QoS and charging strategies. PCC contains the policy and charging rules function (PCRF) and the policy and charging enforcement point (PCEF). Once revenue information in the PCRF is detected, the PCEF generates a policy that is composed of the QoS and charging decisions, then notifications and redirections are performed. The PCC features differentiated charges based on time, location and services, making the network more robust and flexible.

With API support, end users can upload their content to the CP/SPs and networks. CP/SPs can benefit not only from sharing with operators, but also from serving operators and end users. Only when end users and CP/SPs are cultivated can mobile broadband be developed successfully.

Turning a dump pipe into a golden pipe is of great importance and Huawei takes it seriously. We are committed to customer-oriented innovation and with highly experienced, knowledgeable teams in the field, Huawei is actively creating a better future for the industry and helping operators build their competitive edge.


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HSPA+ and LTEThe mobile broadband futureThe mobile industry has been talking for many years about the day when the promise of substantial mobile data revenues would actually become a reality. Much to everyone’s delight, that day has finally arrived.

From 3G Americas

Mobile data–promises delivered

ust look around in any public setting and you’ll see people texting, doing their Email, surfing the web and even downloading music on their wireless devices. And if anecdotal evidence isn’t

good enough, then the real proof is in the numbers. While voice still accounts for the majority of cellular traffic, in the U.S. for the first time since 1998, voice ARPU dipped below 40 USD, and overall ARPU from data reached almost 25% in 2008 and is likely to exceed 30% by the end of 2009, according to Chetan Sharma Consulting. Sharma reports that U.S. wireless data service revenues grew 38.7% in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. Additionally, global mobile data revenues showed a 47.2% year-to-year increase worth a total of 200 billion USD between 2007 and 2008, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

In 2008, there were almost 162 million smartphones sold, surpassing notebook sales for the first time, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. Informa forecasts sales of new smartphones in 2009 will grow more than 30% to 211.2 million units, driven by innovative new devices and operator subsidies designed to promote mobile data consumption, so that by 2013 almost four in every ten handsets sold worldwide will be a smartphone.

While voice will always be important, mobile data

is taking the driver’s seat as mobile operators develop their near- and long-term technology strategies. To meet and exceed their subscribers’ expectations and requirements, mobile operators must offer new, innovative mobile data applications. They also must support a seamless experience that provides end-users with the access and ability to use the data-centric applications they use at home, in the office or on the go anywhere in the world.

Evolution to LTE

The road to the mobile broadband future has several paths and each mobile operator will have different timetables and reasons for taking one path over another. But seemingly all agree on the ultimate goal–an efficient All-IP wireless network capable of supporting voice, video and data services.

Choosing the air interface best suited to meet the needs of tomorrow’s IP-based services is the key to reaching that goal. In addition to impacting their access and core networks, the choice they make also impacts the simultaneous evolution of the entire wireless ecosystem including devices, applications and services.

For many years now a true world cellular standard has been one of the industry’s goals. GSM dominated the second generation (2G) technologies but there was still fragmentation with CDMA and TDMA as well as iDEN. With the move to third generation

J

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chipset, device and infrastructure vendors. LTE is in the early stages of its evolution, but several of the world’s largest mobile operators have announced trials beginning in 2009 and initial deployments as early as 2010 and 2011. The future for LTE and its already impressive ecosystem is evidence of a well-defined standard and there are already more than 100 operators worldwide who have plans for LTE in their future.

“Because of practical benefits and deployment momentum, the migration path from EDGE to HSPA then to LTE is inevitable. Benefits include the ability to roam globally, huge economies of scale, widespread acceptance by operators, complementary services such as messaging and multimedia and an astonishing variety of competitive handsets and other devices,” according to a Rysavy Research EDGE, HSPA and LTE Broadband Innovation report.

While LTE is off to a great start, it will not be deployed worldwide overnight. It will take until at least 2015 for a large percentage of subscribers to begin connecting to LTE networks, according to the Rysavy report. It will take even longer for LTE networks to supplant existing GSM/UMTS/HSPA and CDMA 2000 networks. This means that many

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(3G), nearly all TDMA operators migrated to the GSM technology path. Yet the historical divide between GSM and CDMA remained. It is with the next step of technology evolution that the opportunity has arisen for a global standard technology. Many mobile operators have converged on the technology they believe will offer them and their customers the most benefits. That technology is Long Term Evolution (LTE). For the first time in the world, a future technology standard has spanned the U.S., Asia and Europe with commitments from leading operators on their planned deployment of LTE and a global consensus that LTE will become the dominant technology for the next generation of mobile broadband.

In June of 2008, the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN)Alliance selected LTE as the first technology that matched its requirements successfully. The GSMA, UMTS Forum, 3G Americas and other global organizations have

reiterated their support of the 3GPP evolution to LTE. Additionally, the LTE/SAE Trial

Initiative (LSTI) has provided support through early co-development and testing of the entire ecosystem from

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different kinds of networks will coexist together for most of the decade to come.

“Virtually all of the traditional wireless industry is converging on one air interface (LTE), but everyone is coming at it from different legacy technologies,” says Michael Thelander, CEO and founder of Signals Research Group. “Some operators may begin turning off their 2G networks in the coming decade but it will be well more than a decade before 2G networks no longer exist in at least some markets and I will be long retired from the industry before the same can be said for today’s 3G technologies.”

Bridge to the future

Because the evolution to LTE will take years, mobile operators able to do so will continue to upgrade their existing 2G/3G networks to constantly improve the mobile broadband experience for their customers. With 3.6 billion subscriptions for an 89% share of the global market, and 750 networks in 219 countries worldwide, the GSM-HSPA family of technologies will serve the overwhelming majority of mobile customers for the next ten years even as LTE is commercially deployed.

“We have a great story. We’re not the best because we’re bigger, we’re bigger because we are the best,” says Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas. “And that goes for the entire evolution of our 3GPP technology family.”

With 85% of the global 3G mobile broadband market today and more than 1100 devices commercially announced by 132 suppliers supporting a broad portfolio of mobile data services, it’s clear that UMTS-HSPA will have a significant impact on the evolution of mobile

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broadband in both the near-term and for the foreseeable future.

Because of its many benefits, many UMTS-HSPA operators will choose to deploy HSPA+. An affordable, simple and incremental upgrade to existing HSPA networks, HSPA+ provides mobile operators with significant increases in technology network performance as well as reduced latency on their way to LTE. This is a tremendous advantage of HSPA operators that is not an option for CDMA operators who are already unable to compete with the higher data throughput performance of HSPA and have no future evolution commercially viable for enhancement to their EV-DO networks today.

Because it offers such impressive performance at an incremental cost, some UMTS-HSPA operators plan to use HSPA+ as a bridge to LTE. Telstra launched the world’s first commercial HSPA+ network in February of 2009. In the U.S., both AT&T and T-Mobile USA have committed to evolving their UMTS-HSPA networks to HSPA+ to continue increasing performance. AT&T announced they will begin trials of HSPA+ this year. Analysts anticipate commercial service to begin in the United States in 2010.

“HSPA+ is going to be an exciting opportunity for us and our customers,” says Neville Ray, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations for T-Mobile USA, which deployed its 3G network to more than 130 cities in 2008. Ray points out that the wireless industry is already heavily committed to HSPA. And with a thriving ecosystem in place, HSPA can evolve to HSPA+ to deliver compelling data speeds that meet the advanced wireless needs of customers.

Initial deployments of HSPA+ can deliver peak theoretical downlink throughput rates of 21Mbps, and this speed will be doubled by later HSPA+ technology enhancements, providing a comfortable bridge to future technologies.

Kris Rinne, Senior Vice President, Architecture and Planning for AT&T, agrees that the worldwide embrace of HSPA+ will mean that carriers, infrastructure providers and device manufacturers will be able to take

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

advantage of a huge ecosystem that offers advantages to both service providers and end users.

“The advantages of being on the path we are on include the global scale and international roaming that we can offer our customers due to the GSM technology family,” says Rinne.

AT&T, which has experienced 50% data revenue growth year-to-year for the past three years, began the first widescale deployment worldwide of the initial HSPA technology in its 850 and 1900MHz networks in 2005. Since then, both AT&T’s HSPA network and the HSPA ecosystem have matured–AT&T has the fastest nationwide mobile broadband network in the U.S. and HSPA offers a robust portfolio of handsets and services available today, she adds.

“The beauty of the GSM family of technologies built on the 3GPP technical specification is that devices for future technologies can ‘fall back’ on existing global GSM family technologies services,” explains Pearson. “New deployments of LTE, for example, will allow roaming on GSM-HSPA networks worldwide. This global GSM-HSPA coverage is something that other new mobile broadband technologies will never have the ability to achieve even over the course of many years.”

Recent spectrum auctions in the United States have laid the groundwork for deployment of LTE. For example, AT&T will use LTE to build out the 700MHz and (1700-2100) AWS spectrum it won at auction, according to Rinne. AT&T announced its support of LTE in 2008 and has trials of LTE in 2010 with potential commercial launch of LTE in mid 2011.

“LTE provides us with some incremental benefits in terms of how it is designed to operate across the broad radius of the cell site itself,” says Rinne. “The technology’s high spectral efficiency, combined with the flatter architecture of the network means that operational expenses will be reduced for carriers. LTE can also be used on a wide range of different spectrum, making it ideal for carriers throughout the globe.”

LTE will be a data-centric technology for years to come, but it is the technology that mobile operators will use to begin supporting VoIP, says Thelander. Until then, LTE handsets will be dual- or even tri-mode. “But because LTE is designed to be backwards compatible with GSM/UMTS/HSPA, mobile operators such as AT&T can deploy the new technology as aggressively as they wish and continue to provide their customers with a seamless, full-featured experience wherever they go,” Rinne adds.

Many mobile operators with the current EV-DO technology will likely deploy LTE because

upgrades to their technologies such as Ultra Mobile Broadband are not commercially viable or available. In fact, leading CDMA operators worldwide including Verizon, KDDI, KTF and SKT are among those confirming that they will converge with the 3GPP world, selecting LTE over other radio access methods as they are nearing the end of their existing technology roadmap. In China, the future evolution for TD-SCDMA is a smooth convergent path to LTE TD. Additionally, WiMAX operators may begin to consider LTE as the LTE TDD and FDD ecosystem is developed. Clearwire has publicly stated their intention to evaluate LTE for future deployments, while Sprint is rumored to be considering LTE.

Next level HSPA+ and LTE will likely seamlessly coexist for

many years to come, but mobile operators that reach capacity limits with existing technologies will want to take their networks to the next level of efficiency that uses the OFDMA radio access technology. Deployment of LTE enables mobile operators to operate their networks across 1.4 to 20MHz of spectrum and grow their networks even further and more efficiently on top of an All-IP backbone. Ultimately, LTE will provide them with even more efficiency by enabling them to move their voice traffic onto VoIP.

Because operators require different solutions to meet the needs of their customers, the pace and progress of the LTE evolution will depend on the market they serve, the tools that they have in their arsenal as well as where they are in terms of penetration and growth of their networks and the associated demands that entails.

“The GSM to LTE family of technologies gives a lot of different tools and capabilities to mobile operators, regardless of their spectrum demands or where they are in that growth curve,” says Rinne. “And it enables their customers to enjoy the benefits of global roaming and a rich ecosystem of services and devices from which to choose.”

About 3G Americas3G Americas is an industry association with a

mission to promote, facilitate and advocate for the deployment of the GSM family of technologies including LTE throughout the America. The organization aims to develop the expansive wireless ecosystem of networks, devices, and applications enabled by GSM and its evolution to LTE.

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Editor: Michael [email protected]

Huawei Communicate

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52 40

By Zhao Yinghe

New technologies drive GSM sustainable growthGSM is the most extensively used mobile network in the world. Statistics from Informa Telecoms & Media reveals that about 88% of the current 3.5 billion mobile subscribers are using GSM networks, and that the growth of GSM subscriber base will continue to at least 2013. Despite the advent of 3G, 2G is destined to coexist with 3G over the long-term. Under limited GSM frequency resources, how can network capacity and user experience be continuously enhanced?

Solution

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Solution

Sustainable 2G growth

hough mobile operators are prioritizing 3G network deployment worldwide, 2G networks are still enjoying a period of sustained growth. The broad coverage and

huge user base of 2G promote its key position as a guarantor of operators’ profits and market share. For the foreseeable future, 2G will continue providing conventional voice and low-speed data services to vast numbers of subscribers.

Two factors determine 2G network success: traffic and quality of experience (QoE). The continuous growth of traffic requires more network capacity; QoE embodies end-to-end network performance and reflects the quality of the whole network, including wireless access, transmission, and core network architecture. QoE reveals an operator’s competitive strengths in network planning, optimization, and capability.

At present, GSM networks are still expanding. Increased subscriber numbers elevate traffic levels, which pressures networks and risks compromising QoE. With limited frequency bands, a long-term hurdle for operators is finding the means to raise both capacity and QoE to ensure GSM’s sustainable growth. The Huawei SingleRAN solution offers an expedient safeguard against GSM bottleneck thanks to its enhanced voice and capacity technologies.

Common technologies to enhance capacity

GSM is an interference-limited system, and its frequency is closely related to system capacity and quality. System capacity can be expanded by carrier expansion and cell splitting; the half rate codec; and dual-band, enhanced dual-band, or Co-BCCH.

Carrier expansion and cell splitting is to directly

Before After

Proportion of quality levels 0–4 uplink 97.80% 98.60%

Proportion of quality levels 0–4 downlink 96.30% 97.00%

Proportion of quality level 0 uplink 89.50% 92.50%

Proportion of quality level 0 downlink 85.50% 88.00%

Table 1 Quality enhancement after deploying UISS and IBCA

41

New technologies drive GSM sustainable growth

Tincrease the number of carriers in a cell, or increase the number of sites after reducing the coverage of legacy sites.

Half rate applies a new codec algorithm that reduces the speech channel bandwidth of a full rate codec by half, which allows a channel that normally supports one subscriber to support two. Network capacity is greatly expanded by using the same frequency and carrier configuration. Besides network equipment performance, the proportion of half-rate terminals can also affect network expansion–currently the proportion in most networks exceeds 90%. Field tests show that the proportion of half-rate traffic should be controlled to between 30 and 40% in order to ensure optimized service quality.

Dual -band, enhanced dua l band, or Co-BCCH can increase system capacity by adding new frequency bands to share traffic. Each mode achieves different capacity and performance gains. Dual band network generally comprises 900MHz and 1800MHz and it is the best at transferring traffic, but quality is moderate and the resulting capacity increase is the lowest of the three. Enhanced dual-band enables a moderate capacity increase and gives slightly better quality than dual band. Co-BCCH realizes a high capacity increase, but quality is unpredictable. This tells us that the mode should be selected based on expected quality and capacity.

UISS and IBCA give a new edge

Network capacity can be expanded by increasing frequency bands and the number of base stations, but this of course raises both CAPEX and OPEX. Capacity can also be expanded by leveraging QoE, though doing so will negatively impact customer satisfaction. Huawei’s Um interface software synchronization (UISS) and interference-based channel allocation (IBCA) technologies realize capacity and quality gains by increasing network

Huawei Communicate

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52 42

capacity within limited frequency bands. F r e q u e n c y p l a n n i n g f o r G S M

expansion should be carried out through aggressive frequency reuse and frequency hopping. Under 1×3 or 1×1 frequency reuse, network quality is hard to control and affects capacity expansion when the traffic RF Load rises above 50%. Applying UISS and IBCA can enhance aggressive frequency reuse and subsequently expand overall network capacity.

Network synchronization generally adopts GPS, which is costly due to the GPS hardware and the receive antennas required on the BTS side. In addition, indoor and forested areas are poorly covered as GPS signals are weak. With stable transmission, the Huawei UISS performs identically with GPS and realizes through only a simple software upgrade, without changing BTS hardware or imposing new requirements.

IBCA def ines inter ference-based channel allocation and is applicable based on network synchronization and frequency hopping. In the proposed algorithm, a channel is assigned if the corresponding inter ference margin is less than the allowed interference, and, thus, channels are assigned adaptively to dynamically varying link capacity. This helps achieve low inter-network interference, while enhancing quality and capacity. When allocating channels, IBCA needs identify the mobile allocation index offset (MAIO) with the lowest interference. Both MA and MAIO affect frequency hopping during channel selection, though MAIO actually determines the channel as MA remains relatively constant.

Tests have shown that UISS and IBCA can greatly enhance system capacity under narrow bands less than 8MHz. Applying UISS and IBCA to 4.4MHz, for example, maximally configures the system as S433, which boosts spectrum efficiency by 66% and maintains the same service quality as S222.

A s s u m i n g a G S M o p e r a t o r ’ s frequency band is 7.5MHz, 15 base stations are densely deployed in an S666 configuration, site distance is 1.5–2.0km, and frequency reuse is 1×3, the RF Load is 62.5%. As Table 1 shows, network quality is enhanced by Huawei’s UISS and IBCA

solutions.

Enhancing voice quality

Increasing capacity can lower service quality. In addition to handover, power control, and the TRX algorithm, the UISS and IBCA are vital to meeting sound KPI. Other voice enhanced technologies r e q u i r e d i n c l u d e a d a p t i v e m u l t i -rate (AMR), interference cancellation comb in ing ( ICC) , s i ng l e an t enna interference cancellation (SAIC), and tandem free operation (TFO).

AMR is a new speech codec that has followed enhanced full rate (EFR), full rate (FR) and half rate (HR). AMR’s core concept is to select the best codec mode based on uplink and downlink quality to optimally balance voice quality and system capacity. As a standard 3GPP speech codec, AMR adapts its anti-interference ability to aggressive frequency reuse. The proportion of ARM terminals is also closely related to enhancing capacity.

Evolved from maximal ratio combining (MRC) technology, ICC combines multiple antennas to suppress interference to fortify uplink anti-interference in base stations, which, in dual-antenna mode, enhances the Carrier-to-Interference ratio (C/I) by between 1.5 and 2dB.

SAIC can reduce or eliminate mobile handset interference. By using known information in the same frequency, such as training sequence and modulation format, handset can reduce interference with the help of joint detection/demodulation or blind interference cancellation (BIC).

When a TFO connection is established between two handsets that support the same coding scheme, compressed speech is transferred visually between BSCs, which is equivalent to direct information exchange between two handsets. As the codec is compressed only once, voice quality is greatly enhanced.

Another technology, enhanced packet loss concealment (EPLC), can also help enhance voice quality by masking packet loss based on previous features if a corrupt packet is received.

Editor: Liu Zhonglin [email protected]

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Solution

accelerates mobile broadbandBacked by a series of enhanced technologies, HSPA+ can significantly improve network speed and capacity. Its outstanding performance and extended technology are definitely perking the interests of many operators and spurring on development.

By Kong Fanzhao

HSPA+

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HSPA+ accelerates mobile broadband

Huawei Communicate

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Mobile broadband changes lives

t one time or another, most of us have been waiting to catch a plane when the dreaded announcement comes over the

broadcast system: “Flight number 123 is delayed due to poor weather conditions.” Sometimes you have a few hours to kill or sometimes even have to stay overnight. It is never convenient when you have work to do, urgent documents to send, catch up on Email or merely want to surf the Internet.

The solution is right at your fingertips with 24×7 high-speed mobile broadband access. Anytime, anywhere, you can get Internet access with your mobile phone or insert a high-speed data card into your notebook or netbook and you are good to go.

The pe r f e c t mar r i age o f mob i l e communications and broadband networks is profoundly changing the way people live and communicate, with Huawei on the cutting edge of innovation.

HSPA+ is heating up

HSPA currently is the most widespread mobile broadband technology. HSPA has incorporated new technology into the traditional UMTS network to increase transmission rates, but it is giving way to enhanced HSPA or HSPA+ with even higher transmission rates.

Increasingly more leading operators are starting to deploy HSPA+ networks after close inspection of the new technology. In December 2008, PCCW partnered with Huawei to successfully demonstrate an HSPA+ network and device, which was commercially launched in early 2009. During the 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Telefonica O2 Germany announced its decision to adopt Huawei’s HSPA+ solution to provide its subscribers with peak download speeds of up to 28Mbps. Vodafone in Europe decided to delay its plans to build an LTE trial network and joined forces with vendors including Huawei to test the HSPA+ network in Spain. The results were better than expected with the mobile broadband download speeds exceeding

Huawei, an active player

To boost the HSPA+ industrial chain, Huawei actively engaged with several leading operators in field testing and began a comprehensive cooperation with Qualcomm and other terminal vendors.

At the P&T/Wireless & Networks Comm China 2009, Huawei announced to launch a 56Mbps HSPA+ commercial platform in 2010. Featuring multi-carrier and MIMO technologies, this platform will enable operators to evolve their legacy networks via software upgrades. By August 2009, Huawei has deployed over ten commercial HSPA+ networks globally, along with operators including Vodafone Turkey, EMOBILE, StarHub, and PCCW.

At CeBIT Hannover 2009, known as the biggest and most influential ICT event, Huawei unveiled its HSPA+ slide data card E182E. Featuring a unique slide design with a USB interface, user-friendliness and portability, the E182E can avoid potential damage compared to a traditional USB stick, while improving user experience. Based on cutting edge HSPA+ technology, the E182E boasts the highest transmission rate in the industry, with peak downlink speeds up to 21.6Mbps and uplink speeds up to 5.76Mbps.

The launch of high-speed HSPA+ commercial products marks the maturity of Huawei’s end-to-end HSPA+ Phase 1 solution.

Huawei’s newly-released 3900 series WCDMA Node B fully supports HSPA+ Phase 1 (hardware ready), requiring operators to only upgrade software to gain the diversified functions of HSPA+ Phase 1, while supporting future HSPA+ Phase 2 evolution.

Saving operators money without changing the existing hardware, the Node B system enables new feature upgrades by expanding capacity merely by adding a board with the required software. To ensure innovation, Huawei continues its investment in terminals like data cards, safeguarding sustainable development of the industrial chain.

In 2010, Huawei will fulfill its overall support of HSPA+ Phase 2 and realize all its protocol-based functions. Huawei’s HSPA+ solutions are at the leading edge in terms of advanced technology and complete functionality.

20Mbps. Additionally, other operators including France Telecom and Telecom Italia are vigorously testing HSPA+ 64QAM/MIMO to evaluate performance gains as well as large-scale commercial deployment.

Key technologies

Many major operators are in favor of HSPA+, because it provides a solid foundation for high-speed data services and is applicable for worldwide UMTS operators.

Evolved from HSPA, HSPA+ absorbs the merits of HSPA technology in terms of wireless resource management and mobility management, as well as a mature industrial chain.

H S P A + f o c u s e s o n t e c h n i c a l improvements in Layer 2 enhancement, MIMO, high order modulation, enhanced forward access channel (E-FACH), and continuous packet connectivity (CPC). The data rate in a single cell can be up to 42Mbps on the downlink with 64QAM and 2×2 MIMO technologies, and 11Mbps on the uplink with uplink 16QAM high order modulation.

Moreover, through discontinuous uplink sending and downlink reception, the ba t t e r y l i f e o f u se r equ ipment (UE) is improved and call duration is remarkably increased. In the 3GPP R8 and later versions, multi-carrier HSPA and combination with MIMO can be applied to boost HSPA+ peak data rates.

The introduction of CS voice over HSPA enables the system to have access to more subscribers. Emulation results show that voice capacity over HSPA+ can be increased up to 50%, which means that valuable spectrum resources are exploited more efficiently and effectively. HSPA+ is definitely more competitive than other networks in terms of voice and data services.

As an HSPA enhanced version, HSPA+ features high compatibility and complete technical evolution, plus it is cheaper to deploy than LTE. That is precisely why global UMTS operators are choosing HSPA+ for their next-phase network development. HSPA+ is quickly becoming an indispensable part of current 3G evolution.

A

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Editor: Li Xuefeng [email protected]

Leading Edge

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Rise of LTE

n 2008, many mainstream mobile operators like Vodafone, CMCC, China Unicom, China Telecom, Verizon and NTT DOCOMO,

announced LTE as the next generation network. Qualcomm also announced that it would abandon UMB in favor of LTE. There are many reasons why.

First, LTE has improved and enhanced air interface technologies and increased uplink and downlink rates as well as spectrum eff ic iency. LTE combines OFDMA and MIMO for the downlink and adopts SC-FDMA for the uplink. With a spectrum of 20MHz, LTE is able to provide a downlink peak rate of at least 100Mbps and uplink peak rate of at least 50Mbps. Compared with R6 HSPA, the downlink spectrum efficiency of LTE is 3-4 times higher and the uplink spectrum

At the forefront of LTE

45


I

With a thorough understanding of customer needs and a commitment to excellence, Huawei leads the industry in LTE, a just reward for its pioneering efforts.

By Jiang Yihua

efficiency is 2-3 times higher, increasing cell capacity.

The adoption of MIMO increases the system throughput, extends coverage, improve s QoS and fu r th e r boo s t s per formance at ce l l edges . Rel iable transmission of data is secured.

Second, LTE employs a flat All-IP network architecture which simplifies the network structure and reduces costs. LTE brings revolutionary changes to the entire 3GPP architecture, by using a typical IP broadband network structure. This architecture is known as Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) and is mainly comprised of the eNode B (eNB) and the access gateway.

The access gateway is a boundary node which may be considered as part of the core network, while access networks are made of eNBs. An eNB not only functions as a Node B but also realizes most RNC funct ions , inc luding phys ica l layer functions, MAC layer functions, RRC,

scheduling, access control, bearer control, access mobility management and Inter-cell RRM.

eNBs are interconnected in a mesh. The flat architecture of LTE can further shorten the Round Trip Time (RTT) delay. The one-way target delay is less than 10ms on the user plane and the control plane delay is less than 100ms, facilitating provision of real-time services. The flat architecture of LTE remarkably reduces the number of network nodes as well as the number of devices needing to be maintained. Site acquisition is easier and network deployment is simpler with reduced CAPEX and OPEX.

Notable achievements

Huawei started R&D on LTE early in 2004 and has actively participated in the activities of LTE standardization

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Fig. 1 VoIP support test results

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Huawei Communicate

networks.In May 2009, Huawei exclusively

conducted an LTE TD demonstration for the NGMN conference in Beijing. The demonstration was the first to show successful handover between LTE TD base stations, marking a giant step on the path to commercial operations for LTE TD.

On June 3, 2009, based on the world’s first commercial LTE network, Huawei and TeliaSonera realized LTE Internet broadband access for the first time in the world. This achievement further testified Huawei’s capability of building commercial LTE networks.

46

By June 2009, among the proposals submitted by Huawei to 3GPP, over 1,540 are related to LTE, and over 1,580 are related to SAE. Huawei owns 13.5% of basic LTE patents and is in the top 3 of LTE patent holders worldwide.

Huawei believes that LTE TDD and LTE FDD should develop simultaneously for more e f f i c i ent use o f spect rum resources, for a wider international industrial chain, and to eventually meet the performance and cost requirements of a broadband mobile Internet. In the future, Huawei will continuously invest in LTE FDD and LTE TDD so as to drive the growth and maturity of the entire LTE industrial chain.

Excellent performance proved by field testing

Since 2006, Huawei has carried out field testing for LTE TDD and LTE FDD in China, Europe, North America and Japan. These field tests played an important role in the platform testing, algorithm optimization and performance improvement of Huawei’s LTE equipment.

Separate tests based on a single user and multiple users (simultaneous access by up to 8 UEs) were carried out with respect to different signal to noise ratios, loads and MIMO settings. Various frequency bands were applied, including 2.6GHz and 700MHz as well as 2.1GHz, 1800MHz

organizations. Huawei is an important member of 3GPP. Ever since the 3GPP initiated the LTE project, Huawei has allocated a lot of R&D resources with full participation, while maintaining membership in every LTE standardization organizations. Huawei representatives hold important positions in a number of LTE groups and have definitively helped to establish existing standards.

Huawei also plays an important role in the NGMN and has contr ibuted substantially to R&D on SON, system architecture and network performance. Huawei i s a l so a board member o f the LSTI, which is focused on bring LTE sy s t ems to marke t a s soon a s possible. Huawei’s participation in LTE interoperability tests and wide ranging cooperation with equipment vendors and operators definitely has spurred on LTE industry development.

Huawei’s highly mature and stable LTE equipment is developed on industry-leading fourth generation base stations. In 2008, Huawei launched the world’s first UMTS/LTE, CDMA/LTE and TD-SCDMA/LTE dual-mode base stations and completed verification of services.

At the GSMA Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona in February 2009, Huawei announced the first FDD LTE and TDD LTE convergence solution. The solution makes full use of existing spectrum operator resources to build high quality, ubiquitous mobile broadband

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On June 3, 2009, based on the world’s first commercial LTE network, Huawei and TeliaSonera realized LTE Internet broadband access for the first time in the world. This achievement further testified Huawei’s capability of building commercial LTE networks.

Leading Edge

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 5247

and AWS to be supported later.The tests were carried out in diversified

scenarios, including densely populated urban areas, urban areas, suburban areas, rural areas, low coverage areas, high-speed maglev trains (handover test) along with high-speed movement. The tests also covered interoperability and dual-mode operation of GSM, CDMA, UMTS and TD-SCDMA.

Results of the key technical indicators (throughput, handover, delay and VoIP support) of the Huawei LTE are described below:

Throughput

The test was conducted with a single cell, 2×2 MIMO and a single user and tested the performance of Layer 1 with Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and different fading channels, including throughputs under static, mobile and high-speed conditions. Y coordinates represent throughputs, and X coordinates represent signal to noise ratios. The downlink rate was tested under different code rates of 64QAM 1/2 and 2/3 and 16QAM 1/2 and 2/3, and the uplink rate was tested under different speeds while moving. The measured maximum downlink peak rate reached 120Mbps.

The test results show that, with the configurat ion of a typical network, opera tor s cou ld use Huawei’s LTE equipment to provide bandwidth per LTE user comparable to that in a fixed network. One of the direct benefits of the high throughput of Huawei LTE is the dramatic drop in per-bit CAPEX and OPEX, enabling mobile operators to compete with fixed operators in broadband services.

Handover

The tests covered seamless high-speed handover, intra-eNB handover and inter-eNB handover. The worst case scenarios, particularly those with strong interference, were considered in order to accurately reflect the performance of Huawei’s LTE equipment.

The test results show that QoS is guaranteed by Huawei’s LTE equipment both before and after handover, and the handover delay meets the requirements of

different services. During handovers under high-speed movements (up to 350km/h) and strong interference, streaming services were smooth without frame skipping and VoIP voice was clear without call drop. The high success rate of handover proved the feasibility of large-scale commercial deployment of Huawei’s LTE system.

Delay

Delays have been considered a flaw in ex i t ing mob i l e communica t i on technologies. The lack of delay in LTE services lets users clearly experience the advantages of LTE and its inherent 24×7connectivity.

In the delay tests, the activation time with respect to the control plane meets the 3GPP requirements. Ping results are as good as expected with the measured delay being less than 9ms (including handover) but impacted slightly by the load. The impact of UDP on delays is negligible.

VoIP support

Huawe i ha s no t on ly pa id c lo s e attention to the superb performance of LTE in handling mobile broadband data, but also voice services performance. Support for Huawei’s LTE equipment for VoIP, allows operators to provide inexpensive VoIP services to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty and stand up to the competition from Skype VoIP and similar services.

Results of Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) and non-GBR tests with different bearer types indicate that QoS is guaranteed for both 100% of FTP loads under non-GBR and VoIP under GBR, and that the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of VoIP is extraordinarily good under non-GBR. See Fig. 1.

In 2009, Huawei continues helping operators build pilot LTE systems in Asia, Europe and North America and conducts large-scale field tests. Over 50 base stations will be tested to further improve the maturity and performance of the LTE products. The superior performance of the LTE system in field testing has made it quite feasible to put Huawei’s LTE products into large-scale commercial use.Editor: Liu Zhonglin [email protected]


Now Huawei continues helping operators build pilot LTE systems in Asia, Europe and North America and conducts large-scale field tests. The superior performance of the LTE system in field testing has made it quite feasible to put the LTE products into large-scale commercial use.

NOV 2009 . ISSUE 52

Huawei Communicate

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